


AU-gust

by iam93percentstardust



Series: Tumblr Prompts [16]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Clint Barton Has ADHD, Deaf Clint Barton, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Flirting, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Kid Fic, M/M, Omega Tony Stark, Past Character Death, Sickfic, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:34:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 29,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25648912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: This year's Au-gust challenge with prompts from tumblr
Relationships: Clint Barton/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark/Sam Wilson, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark/Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Phil Coulson/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Sam Wilson, Tony Stark/T'Challa, Tony Stark/Thor
Series: Tumblr Prompts [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817254
Comments: 202
Kudos: 735





	1. Winteriron; Fantasy AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by anon

Dummy whispers in his ear, “Someone is coming.”

Tony lazily swats at his ear like Dummy is a particularly irritating fly—not an inapt description, really. “Yes, I know.” His magic had felt the man when he’d turned the corner of the block, be hard to miss him with the amount of unfamiliar power he’s putting off.

“Someone is coming, someone _new_.”

“Yes, I _know_ ,” he repeats and flicks his fingers. Dummy zooms off, wreaking havoc in the love spells section as he goes. Tony sighs. Wind spirits. More trouble than they’re worth to be completely honest but his three had attached themselves to him after he saved them from a fire demon threatening to eat them. They’ve decided that they owe him a life debt. At this point, Tony thinks he might just consider the debt paid if they would _leave_.

…No, he wouldn’t. He loves them even if he insists otherwise to everyone who listens.

He goes back to shelving the books on minor hexes, deciding to pick up the ones on love spells later. If a helpful customer decides to pick up the love spell books, the most they might end up doing to themselves is getting doused in an infatuation spell. If they tried to pick up the hexes, they might find themselves accidentally cursed.

The windchimes above the door sound as the man enters the shop, letting in a gust of cold air. Tony flicks his fingers at the spell over the cash register, activating it to say, “Be with you in a moment.”

The man startles and Tony snickers to himself as he finishes putting away the books. This one’s okay…that one’s safe…that one has a curse placed on it. He tucks that one under his arm so he can annotate it. He doesn’t believe in removing the curses themselves since they’re sometimes an important part of the book but he doesn’t want an unsuspecting reader to pick it up and find out that they’ve been cursed to dance to death.

He heads back to the front where the man—dark hair, broad shoulders, the kind of ass that Tony wants to see if he can bounce quarters off of—is scratching Jarvis’ ears and cooing at him.

“Careful,” he says. “Jarvis bites if he thinks he’s being condescended to.”

The man jumps again, whirling around to show Tony the most gorgeous grey eyes he’s ever seen and a five-o-clock shadow that he really wants to feel between his thighs. Aw fuck, he just hits all of Tony’s buttons, doesn’t he. It’s been way too long since the last time he got laid.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend him,” the man says, drawls really, and Tony shivers. Yeah, definitely way too long since he got laid.

“Something I can help you with?” he asks, trying to put on a professional veneer before he snaps and asks the man out.

“Yeah, I’m the new Magic History professor at—”

“Oh so _you’re_ Professor Barnes,” Tony exclaims. Barnes frowns, brow furrowing cutely. Tony kind of wants to reach over and smooth it out. “Small town, you know. You’re lucky the grapevine doesn’t know everything about you yet. Town’s 50-50 split on whether you’re a witch or something else.”

Barnes grins wolfishly, showing off a hint of fangs. “Something else,” he says.

Tony laughs. “You just won me a couple hundred bucks,” he informs him. “So I think we can maybe see about a discount. What is it you’re looking for?”

“Anything you’ve got on the Dragon Wars. The last guy wasn’t too keen on teaching both sides.”

“And you are?” Tony asks idly, mentally rifling through the inventory. He twitches his fingers and three books come zooming out of the aisles. Barnes ducks as they fly over his head, landing in a stack on the counter.

“My best friend’s a dragon,” Barnes says. “Too young to fight in the Wars but he heard all the stories from his ma. And he’s pretty big on truth, justice—”

“And the American way?” Tony asks, smirking.

Barnes shoots him an amused grin. “Something like that.” He gestures at the books. “So what are all these?”

Tony taps the first one with the tip of his finger. “This one is the one I recommend. It’s written by Nicholas Fury, one of the generals during the Wars. The other two are good but they’re both written by witches who spent some time with the dragons.”

Barnes picks up the one written by Fury and says, “I’ll go with this one then if that’s what you recommend. I trust your judgment.” He winks at Tony, who promptly turns away to hide his blush.

“Just let me know if you need anything else,” he almost squeaks as he begins ringing up the book.

“Not at the moment,” Barnes says thoughtfully, handing over a few silver coins. “But, you know, my library’s pretty empty. Gonna need some new books to fill it.”

“So I’ll see you soon then?” Tony asks, trying to hide his thrill at the thought.

“Maybe even as soon as tomorrow. Don’t think I could stay away.”

He saunters out the door, book in hand, as Tony stares dreamily after him.

“Someone new,” Dummy whispers in his ear.

Tony swats at him and agrees, “Someone new.”


	2. Ironhawk; College AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by endrega23
> 
> Disclaimer: I headcanon Clint as ADHD in this one based on my own personal experiences with ADHD. I understand that not everyone with ADHD has a universal experience and may not have an experience like Clint's or mine.

Clint doesn’t like going to class. His ADHD makes it difficult for him to pay attention—or to keep from distracting other students—and the fact that he works nights means that he can’t take his meds in the morning to help him focus if he wants to be able to sleep that day so he just doesn’t bother going. It’s not like he doesn’t know the material anyway. He majored in Recreation Management so that he’d be “qualified” to do the job he’s been doing his entire life. At this point, he could probably _teach_ his classes.

Tony, though, Tony goes to all of his classes, not because he needs to learn anything—he could _definitely_ teach his classes—but because Howard thinks it’s important for him to show up. And because Tony is a sweetheart who wants to make a good impression on his professors.

Fucking Howard, Clint thinks as he slings his backpack over his shoulder.

He glances back toward the bedroom where he can just barely spot a tuft of brown hair sticking out from under the blankets. Tony sneezes, rolls over to face the wall, and sneezes again. Reassured that Tony is still alive, Clint sets out into the way-too-early morning (why do engineering classes have to be at the crack of dawn?).

He gets there early enough that he can snag a seat in the back of the classroom, mostly because he sees better from a distance but also to make sure that if his meds don’t kick in on time, he distracts as few people as possible. He’d resigned himself that morning to a sleepless day so that he could go to Tony’s classes—thankfully only two today—and actually focus on the lectures. He might know exactly what he’s doing in his own classes but the math Tony is learning goes way over his head. He’ll need to be able to pay attention so as not to miss anything important.

Fortunately, he comes armed with a special notebook Tony designed for him and a pen that records the audio of the lecture and when he uses the pen and notebook together, the notebook records a digital transcription of his notes. Hopefully, even if he misses something to write it down—and that’s always possible when professors talk at the board during their lecture because then, his hearing aids sometimes miss it—the pen will have picked it up.

The morning passes quickly, in a haze of a lot of math that Clint doesn’t understand but surprisingly almost as much math that he _does_ understand, and then he’s trudging back through the snow to their apartment. They don’t live too far from campus, in one of the actually nice apartment complexes because Maria Stark insists on the best for her darling, which is great in the spring since they can just walk to campus but absolutely terrible in the winter since neither of them bothered to get a car because they can just walk to campus.

Clint blames Tony always forgetting to grab a hat and gloves when he leaves for why he’s sick now.

Tony hasn’t moved from the bed when Clint walks through the front door but he has the laptop propped up on the bed next to him and Clint can hear the sounds of some action movie floating through the apartment so he figures Tony is probably awake. He goes into the kitchen and starts heating up some soup. Neither he nor Tony are particularly good at cooking but he thinks he can probably manage dumping a can of soup into a pot and stirring it a few times.

He heads back into the bedroom once it’s heated with a bowl of the soup and a cup of chamomile tea. “How are you feeling?” he asks, setting the whole tray on the nightstand and reaching for the thermometer. Temperature first, then food.

“Leave me here to die,” Tony croaks dramatically.

“Can’t,” Clint says lightly. “I put too much time into this relationship to give up now.”

He holds the thermometer out. Tony obediently sticks it under his tongue. They wait a moment for it to flash 99.7—better than it was last night but still not great.

“Do you feel up to some lunch?” he asks.

Tony hums listlessly but reaches out for the bowl when Clint passes it to him. He helps him sit up, tucking a couple pillows behind Tony’s back so he’s not leaning against the hard headboard.

“Where did you go this morning?” Tony asks. “Get some time in at the range?”

Clint glances in the corner where his bow and quiver are still hung on the wall but maybe Tony had been too tired to notice them still there. “Do you really think I would abandon you here to go shoot some arrows?” he asks, telling himself not to be offended when Tony is sick and has pretty much never had someone to take care of him like this.

Tony shrugs. “You weren’t here when I woke up.”

“Because I went to your classes, dumbass.” He pulls the notebook out of his backpack and passes it to his sick boyfriend.

“Oh,” Tony says softly, flipping the book open to glance over Clint’s notes. “You did that for me?”

Much to Clint’s horror, Tony’s eyes are filling with tears. Aw shit, he’s so bad with emotion. “Ya know, maybe now since I did that, you’ll get me those fancy arrows I’ve been wanting for Christmas,” he scrambles to say and then wants to hit himself as soon as he’s done.

Tony though just smiles at him like he understands the sentiment behind it and leans over to kiss Clint’s cheek. “Thank you,” he murmurs before sinking back into the pillows.

“Yuck, germs,” Clint says cheerfully but he’s happy enough to curl up next to Tony on the bed when his boyfriend pats the empty space next to him. “What are we watching?”

Apparently one of the Bourne films, which Clint can’t stand, but he knows Tony loves him so he gamely turns down his hearing aids so that he doesn’t have to listen to the movie and instead puts his focus on cuddling Tony. He’ll probably get sick in a couple of days but Tony’s more important than worrying about a couple of germs.


	3. Winteriron; Soulmates AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by warmachinesocks
> 
> Inspired by that idea that the world is in greyscale the further away your soulmate is

Tony doesn’t actually notice the world getting more colorful at first. It’s not uncommon for people to wear sunglasses when their soulmates aren’t with them because really, who wants to live their life in greyscale? And that’s exactly what Tony is doing. He hates admitting that Bucky isn’t with him for even a few minutes so why would he want to go about his day like that?

So no, he doesn’t notice that the world is getting brighter because the sunglasses keep everything a nice sepia tone. But the problem with always wearing sunglasses is that, inevitably, you’ll wind up having to walk into a dark room and if you don’t want to bump into someone or something, then the sunglasses need to come off. Maybe he should look into special contacts or something… Not necessarily so that he could make the world as colorful as it is when Bucky’s around because that just seems offensive to the way his soulmate makes things better but maybe something that could act like sunglasses and adjust to the brightness level? That’s probably doable, right?

Yeah, he should get someone right on that.

Maybe him.

After the new StarkPad releases.

And he does the upgrades to the Iron Man suit.

And he makes new wings for Sam.

And he starts on the new Intellicrops seeds.

Okay so maybe not him.

Point is, he takes the sunglasses off for Rob in Finances’ presentation and when the lights flick on, it takes him a moment to realize that the grey isn’t, well, so…grey anymore. And then he realizes that Pepper’s shirt today is blue.

And that’s when he whips around to search the skyline for something—anything—that would tell him Bucky is on his way back. It’s been too fucking long of a mission: two months without his Bucky Bear and he’s just starting to get used to the greyscale world again which is the fucking _worst_.

Sure enough, right there on the horizon, is a small speck quickly getting larger that Tony figures is the Quinjet. He whirls back around, giving Pepper the biggest puppy dog eyes he can muster.

“No,” she says flatly.

So Tony has to sit there—pout, though he wouldn’t use that term—through the rest of the meeting while the world gets steadily more colorful around him until Pepper finally declares him free to go and then he’s up, bursting out the door, using the progressive brightening and darkening of the world to guide him through the tower and to their bedroom.

That’s where he spots Bucky, lounging on the bed and reading a book as he waits.

Bucky glances up when he hears the patter of Tony’s footsteps on the hardwood and breaks into a broad grin. “Hey, doll,” he says, sitting up and holding out his arms.

“Bucky Bear!” Tony crows, hurtling into the bedroom. He launches himself at the bed and Bucky catches him, pulling him into a breathtaking kiss.

Around them, the world bursts into riotous color.


	4. Ironfalcon; Angels/Demons AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary

So maybe Bucky doesn’t _laugh_ when Sam gets put on gate duty as punishment for their prank but he certainly snickers hard enough that Sam feels no guilt in tugging on his wings as they’re dismissed.

Stupid guardian angels considered too “important” to assign to a different job.

Still, he thinks and brightens up at the thought, at least Bucky’s been given a particularly hard case this time. He got a chance to see the file before Bucky left for Earth: some secret agent with a penchant for getting himself injured. That’s not gonna be an easy job like the last couple have been.

He takes up his post at the gate and tries hard not to roll his eyes every time someone falls to their knees to think him for allowing them into Heaven as though they didn’t do that all by themselves. It happens ten times just in the first hour that he’s standing there. He stifles a groan after the last one goes inside and resists the urge to check his watch. He knows how long he has to be here—another nine years, three hundred and sixty four days, and twenty-three hours. There’s no point in checking the time.

It’s mostly an easy job. Sure there’s the occasional person who gets sent up when they should have been sent down and they always try to fight him but Sam isn’t one of Heaven’s best warriors for nothing. So it’s an easy job. It’s just…boring. And tedious. And a thousand other dull adjectives that he doesn’t feel like thinking of at the moment, even if he does have the time.

“I want Saint Peter,” the guy standing in front of him insists.

Sam glances him over once—little bit of a beer belly, tucked under a too-small suit, hair combed and slicked, definitely a politician—and then checks his list on who’s supposed to be arriving today. This one’s been insisting for the last ten minutes that he’ll only enter if Saint Peter comes out to personally welcome him. Sam hadn’t worried about it at first but the longer it had stretched on, the more he’d started to wonder if this guy was really supposed to be there. Most people don’t care _who_ greets them at the gates, just that they’re _at_ the gates.

He maybe takes too much of a vindictive pleasure when he realizes this one isn’t actually on the list so he gets to inform him, “Sorry, there’s been a mistake. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“ _What?_ Let me see—” He snatches for the list and Sam doesn’t even get a chance to warn him before he disappears in a flash of light. Trying to take the list—that’s a big no up here. Oh well. It’s not like that was a huge loss and the guy’s only been sent to where he was supposed to be anyway so who cares?

Sam goes back to waiting, leaning up against the side of the gate, wishing that something interesting would happen.

Then there’s a little pop, followed by the scent of campfire smoke and wood ash, and a demon appears in front of him.

He looks the demon up and down—immaculately groomed goatee, tiny horns poking out of his curls, whiskey warm eyes, and a prehensile tail lashing irritably behind him—and then says, “You gotta know I can’t let you in.”

“I know that,” the demon snarls. “But I need to get Herself to sign off on something.” He holds up a file and Sam catches a glimpse of a name glittering in gold ink before the demon tucks it back inside his jacket.

Sam crosses his arms. “Uh-huh.” Like he hasn’t heard that one before. About once a century, Lucifer tries to send a demon up here to infiltrate Heaven. It never works and Sam usually gets sent to kick their butts back to Hell, which is great, but it still happens.

The demon’s eyes narrow. “You don’t believe me, do you,” he states, not even really a question. “Fine. You sent someone down there a few minutes ago, a politician, presumably because he wasn’t on your list. Well, he’s not on _ours_ either but he definitely belongs there so I need Herself to sign off on the form so we can keep him there.”

“You guys have a list?” Sam asks, surprised. He doesn’t see why they would need one. If they’re not on the list for Heaven, then they’re definitely set for Hell so what’s the point of them having a list?

The demon gives him a sidelong look. “Some people,” he says slowly, “don’t believe in a Christian-based Hell so they don’t belong with us either.”

Oh. That—that makes sense actually. Maybe he should see about getting more stringent requirements for kicking people down to Hell. He’s seen the Gates of Hell; they’re pretty terrifying for anyone, let alone someone who belongs in another religion’s version of the good place.

“You’re really not here to infiltrate Herself’s court?” he asks, just double checking but the demon gasps in offense.

“How dare you accuse me of lying?”

Sam gives him an unimpressed look. “You’re a _demon_.”

“I take offense at that! I am a demon with honor! And integrity! And—”

“Okay, don’t wear yourself out. Come on, I’m gonna have to escort you through.” He presses the button that’ll open the gate. It’s hidden up his sleeve so that it looks like the gates are opening magically for the humans entering. The demon doesn’t look awed though.

He just snorts and mutters, “Pretentious.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “It’s Sam by the way, since you didn’t ask.”

“Tony, since you didn’t ask either.”

Yeah, that’s probably fair.

“So is this what you do all the time? You check the list and come to us if there’s a problem?” he asks as they walk inside.

Tony does an admirable job of ignoring the askance looks he’s getting. “No,” he mutters sullenly. “I’ve got a job on Earth but I got in trouble for causing too much mischief so I got assigned to gate duty.”

“You can cause _too much_ mischief?”

“Interfered too much with someone set out for sainthood. Lucifer doesn’t like to mess with those. Says those end with too much smiting.”

A plan starts to take form in Sam’s mind and he grins. “But you can interfere in other people’s lives?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“So if I gave you the name of a guardian angel, you could go and mess with them?”

Tony gives him an amused smirk. “Yeah. Who?”


	5. Ironwarfalcon; Apocalypse AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary
> 
> I have no idea if this is the actual ship name for Tony/Sam/Rhodey but it should be because it's badass

They touch down on an abandoned interstate outside of Cambridge and hike into the city from there. “So what _are_ we doing here?” Sam asks, warily eyeing a group of survivors picking through an old car. Rhodey’s refused to tell him so far why it was so important they make a stop by MIT but he figures it _has_ to be important or else they wouldn’t be here.

“We’re meeting someone,” Rhodey says absently, peering up at the apartment buildings around them like he’s trying to figure out which one he’s looking for.

“You don’t think they would have left?” Sam asks doubtfully. He kicks at an alien gun lying on the street. Dead, go figure. He doubts he could have used it even if it was working. There’s something fishy about the guns that make it so only the aliens can use them.

Rhodey shakes his head. “Not Tony. He would’ve made a stand here.”

Sam doesn’t reply but he thinks to himself, _So he’s dead then_. But, hey, if Rhodey wants to have hope that his friend is still alive, then Sam isn’t going to stop him. There’s been little enough of that since in the last two weeks; you gotta grab it where you can.

“This is it,” Rhodey suddenly says and darts to the side, into a building that looks like one of those nice, expensive apartments that Sam would never be able to afford in a million years, not on his paycheck.

He follows Rhodey inside, up two flights of stairs, and down a hallway that closely resembles a minefield. They step carefully, trying to avoid anything that might set off one of the traps and Sam whispers, “So this Tony…”

“He’s a Stark.”

“No shit, seriously?”

No one knows if the aliens had hit Howard and Maria Stark first because they knew that they produced weapons or if it had been unlucky coincidence that they’d been taken out in the first wave. Either way, without them and left to poor designers like Hammer, Earth had been sitting ducks for the rest of the invasion. Tony Stark disappeared from the public eye years ago. There’s been a lot of speculation about where he might be but it was kind of figured that he was dead too.

Rhodey nods and opens his mouth—

“One more step and I’ll shoot.”

They both froze. The voice was coming from behind them, disguised through a modulator, but still undeniably male.

“Hands in the air, turn around slowly.”

They turn to face the guy—short, face covered with a bandanna, holding a fully functional alien gun—who abruptly drops the weapon and cries out, “Rhodey?”

“Tones,” Rhodey breathes out and then he’s stepping forward, through the minefield to the young man, who rips off his bandanna and practically throws himself into Rhodey’s arms.

“You weren’t answering your phone,” Tony sobs, holding onto Rhodey like there’s no tomorrow.

“Lost it in the attack,” Rhodey says sheepishly.

“I was _worried!_ ”

Rhodey pets his hair soothingly. “I’m back now. Not gonna leave you behind.”

Tony pulls away and cups his cheek, searching his eyes for something. Whatever it is, he must find it because he leans up on his toes and kisses Rhodey softly. Sam looks away, giving the two of them some privacy, or at least as much as he can manage in the cramped hallway.

He hears them murmuring to each other and figures it’s just the usual lover nonsense right up until Rhodey says, “That’s Sam. He helped me here.”

Sam looks back and smiles, giving Tony a brief wave. “I saved his life a couple times.”

“And I saved yours,” Rhodey shoots back.

Tony apparently doesn’t notice the comeback because his eyes get big and wet. “You did? You saved my Honeybear?”

“Oh no,” Rhodey mutters.

The next thing Sam knows, he’s got an armful of Tony Stark kissing his cheeks.

“Thank you,” Tony whispers. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“Sure,” Sam says, embarrassed by the easy affection.

Rhodey is looking out one of the windows in the hallway, watching the sun go down. “Looks like we’re stuck here tonight,” he comments. “Got a plane a couple miles away but we won’t make it before dark.”

Tony shivers and Sam can’t help but wonder if he’s run into the packs of scavengers that roam the cities at night.

“You think the plane will be okay with us leaving it there?” Sam asks.

“Should be,” Tony replies. “Cambridge isn’t as bad as Boston proper. Guess we’ll see though. Come on, I’ve got food and water in the apartment and a couple beds.”

He takes Rhodey by one hand and Sam by the other, much to his surprise, and leads them through the minefield.


	6. Stevetony; Hospital AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by maguna-stxrk

“Will it hurt?”

Tony pauses in hanging up the blood pressure cuff. It’s a fairly common question, he gets it several times a day, but he always tries to remember that for each child, it’s the first time they’ve asked this. He goes back to the little girl sitting on the examination table and kneels down so that he’s level with her instead of towering above her.

“Yes,” he says honestly because he doesn’t believe in lying to children. “It probably will but it won’t be any worse than a quick pinch _and_ —” He produces a sticker from the pocket of his scrubs and passes it to her. “—since you’ve been very good for me, I’ll give you a sticker right now. And if you’re very good for Dr. Rogers too, I’ll give you a lollipop later, how does that sound?”

“Are you bribing my patients, Mr. Stark?”

“Not at all.” Tony winks at the girl and she giggles. He stands, blows the girl a quick kiss, and gestures at Steve in the doorway. “This is Dr. Rogers, he’ll be taking care of you today. He’s our very best doctor, all the kids are saying so.”

“Then I’ll say so too,” the girl says.

“Atta girl,” he praises, giving her a high-five. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

As he’s passing Steve in the door, Steve catches him by the waist. “Are we still on for dinner tonight?” he murmurs.

“At Marcell’s, yes.”

“Are we meeting your parents there or do we need to pick them up?”

Tony laughs softly. “We’re meeting them there. Mom said she remembers what young love is like and she wants nothing to do with being there when we decide enough is enough.”

“Mmm,” Steve agrees. “Think they’ll be gone before dessert?” He reaches around and, out of sight of the girl waiting in the room, pinches Tony’s backside.

“Steve,” he hisses, scandalized, and scootches out of the room.

He runs into Jane in the hall who takes one look at the expression on his face and bursts into merry laughter. “Yeah, yeah, yuk it up,” he grumbles.

“Can’t help it if it’s obvious when you two have a date night. Steve gets extra handsy,” she tells him.

“It’s meet the parents night,” he informs her and she winces sympathetically.

“I remember when I took Thor to meet my parents. It did _not_ go well.”

“Yeah well Thor is an eight-feet tall blond Viking who could probably crush a melon in between his thighs so I’m hoping things go better with mine.”

“Thor is six and a half feet tall and you know it.”

Steve pokes his head out of the room and asks, “Tony, could you grab me a lollipop from the front desk since she said you promised her one.”

“Sure thing,” he says cheerfully and starts down the hallway. Before he can take more than a couple steps, Steve grabs his wrist and stops him.

“You’re forgetting something,” he says.

Tony groans. “It’s two steps down the hall. Can’t you go without a kiss that long?”

“Nope. We’re being parted from each other so I deserve a kiss.”

Tony groans again but gamely leans up to kiss Steve’s cheek. He doesn’t really mind that Steve always wants a kiss before they separate. In fact, it kind of makes him feel kind of flattered. He’s never had a boyfriend before who hated leaving him so much that he always wanted a kiss first and the attention is nice.

Steve turns his head at the last second to kiss Tony’s lips instead and Tony sighs into the kiss. He really can’t be too frustrated though. Steve always does this.

“Okay _now_ you can go get the lollipop,” Steve says cheerfully.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“No problem. Go. Before she gets impatient.”

Tony sticks his tongue out at him and runs to catch up with Jane down the hall. She’s laughing at him again. That’s probably fair. He and Steve have been called disgustingly cute before, a very _very_ apt nickname.

“Don’t say a word,” he warns her.

She grins, grabs a lollipop from the front desk, and sticks it in his front pocket. “Wasn’t going to.”

“I can hear you thinking it. Yeah, yeah, Steve and I are sappy and Hallmark levels of cute, heard it all before.”

“It’s nice seeing you so happy,” she says softly. He abruptly remembers that she was here back when he was dating Sunset and Tiberius. She remembers what he was like back then.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I guess it is.”


	7. Stevetony; Childhood Friends AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For furthermadness for putting up with me for almost 7 years

Steve meets the boy he’s going to marry on the playground. It’s been two days since Howard and Maria Stark finalized their divorce, one day since the newly named Maria Carbonell took her son and vanished into thin air, and three hours since someone started moving in next door.

Of course, Steve doesn’t know any of that. He’s only seven. What he knows is that his ma goes next door to introduce herself to their new neighbors with a plate of cookies and comes back with an empty plate and the news that their neighbor has a little boy.

“His name is Tony,” his ma says as she washes the plate. She sounds sad the same way she does when she talks about his dad. “He’s five years old but he’s in the grade above you and Ms. Carbonell sent him to the playground across the street. Why don’t you go find him and say hello?”

Steve doesn’t even hesitate. With how much he’s sick, he doesn’t often get a chance to go to the playground so he seizes the chance when he can. Sure enough, the playground is mostly empty since all the other kids in the neighborhood are at school but there’s a little boy, tinier than Steve even, sitting on the swings and rocking his feet back and forth. He’s never seen this boy before so he figures this has to be Tony.

He creeps closer, wanting to get a look at Tony before Tony gets a look at him. Tony has the fluffiest brown hair and big eyes and one helluva bruise stamped across his right cheek like he’s been hit. That just plain isn’t right. Steve doesn’t know much about Tony’s life but he knows that no one should hit a kid and he’s _never_ liked bullies so he marches up to the boy and sticks his hand out.

“Hi, I’m Steve. My ma said you’re moving in next door,” he says cheerfully.

Tony glances behind him at their houses and then timidly shakes his hand. “Tony,” he says quietly.

“My ma said you’re in the grade above me. You must be really smart.”

Immediately, Tony seems to close in on himself and Steve realizes that he’s said something wrong.

“Sorry,” he offers. “Don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. My friend, Bucky, he says that maybe I wouldn’t get into so many fights if I did.”

To his relief, Tony giggles and swings his legs again. Steve looks down at where his feet are too small to touch the ground and says, “I could push you if you like. I’m not very strong cause I’m sick all the time but I could push you a little.”

Tony nods eagerly, says, “I’d like that,” in a shy voice that makes Steve wonder if he usually gets refused what he wants, so he heads around the back of the swingset and gives Tony a little push to get him started. Tony is about as light as a feather so it’s easier to push him than he had expected but he still gets tired pretty easily. That’s okay though because by that point, Tony’s pretty much swinging himself.

Steve sits on the swing next to Tony, watching as he swings higher and higher, shouting questions at him as he swings. Tony, he learns, is smart enough that he used to help his dad at his company and that’s why they moved away. His favorite color is red and he likes Batman best of all (Steve likes Superman but Batman and Superman are friends so he thinks it’ll be okay). His favorite princess is Tiana cause she’s a hard worker like his mom.

He’s just thinking about asking Tony to come back to his house for a snack when it happens: Tony’s grip on the swing loosens—he loses it at the top of the arc—he starts to fall—

And Steve scrambles out of his seat, catching Tony just in time. They tumble to the ground, him wrapped around the smaller boy protectively, shielding him from the wood chips. They both end up with a couple scrapes but Tony’s bruise on his cheek doesn’t look any worse than it did earlier so Steve thinks he did alright.

“You okay?” he asks. “My ma’s a nurse. She has some bandaids at the house.”

“You caught me,” Tony says wondrously. Steve glances at him and frowns.

“Course I did.”

“No one’s ever caught me before.”

Steve stares at him a long time, wondering what kind of home he comes from where no one had ever caught him when he fell. “I’ll always catch you,” he promises. “Always.”

* * *

Fifteen years later, Steve is twenty-two and about to graduate college, home for winter break, and the boy he’s going to marry is twenty and about to finish grad school. There’s a ring on Tony’s finger now, made out of lab-created sapphires and silver, put there by Steve two months ago. They’re going to get married after Steve graduates in the spring.

In Steve’s house, his ma and Tony’s mom are making Christmas dinner. He and Tony had offered to help but they’d both been shooed out of the house so they’re out at the old playground, shivering a little in the cold but unwilling to walk the whole two blocks to the nearest coffeeshop.

He looks up at Tony swinging above him, laughing as the wind rushes by his face. “You’re going to catch your death,” he calls and Tony just shakes his head.

“Don’t be such a grandpa,” he teases.

Steve grins and climbs to his feet, already knowing what’s coming next.

“Will you catch me?” Tony asks, the next time he comes down.

Tony isn’t as light as a feather anymore but Steve isn’t the small, sickly boy he’d once been either. He’s bigger now, stronger, healthier thanks to the doctors Ms. Carbonell had paid for. When he catches Tony, they don’t fall to the ground anymore.

“I’ll always catch you,” he promises. “Let go, sweetheart.”

And Tony smiles down at him and lets go.


	8. Ironagent; Coffeeshop AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary

Tony is the barista working when Phil walks through the door.

To be fair, Tony is usually the barista working because he’s the owner and it’s a small coffeeshop but Phil is pretty sure that Tony deliberately takes the shifts when he knows Phil will be in because he wants to irritate him. Tony, who seems to thrive on spite, seems like the kind of person who would do that.

“Agent!” Tony chirps, immediately perking up.

“Hello, Stark,” he says wearily. “Are you going to give me what I actually ordered today?”

See, it’s this…thing that Tony does—for all his regulars really but especially for Phil—where Phil goes in, orders a black coffee like he always does, and somehow, he always walks out with a drink that he definitely didn’t order. It always tastes good, even when it’s a combination that shouldn’t, and Tony never charges him the price of the new drink, which is always more expensive than a black coffee. Sometimes, when it’s been a good day, Phil doesn’t even mind but yesterday wasn’t a good day. Yesterday was a fucking awful day that was way too long and ended with a lot of injuries.

“Depends,” Tony replies. “What are you going to order?” Then he stops and peers closely at Phil. “You doing okay? You look a little grey.”

Phil barks out a laugh. Leave it to Tony to be painfully blunt. “Late day at the office,” he says eventually.

Tony frowns. “SHIELD’s keeping you late? Don’t they know everything you do for them? You’re supposed to go _home_ , Agent. You know, get some sleep.”

He looks pointedly at the deep shadows under Tony’s eyes. “You’re one to talk.”

“I’m a small business owner,” Tony says, waving his hand dismissively. “I have to make up the capital.”

“You’re a billionaire who decided he didn’t want to make weapons anymore. You already have the capital.”

“Beside the point.” Tony smiles softly and gestures at one of the couches. “Go sit down, Agent. You look like you’re about to fall over. I’ll have your cup in a few minutes.”

Phil fishes out his credit card and Tony shakes his head. “On the house. You’re a frequent visitor; I think you’re entitled to a free cup of coffee by this point.”

“If that were true,” he says dryly, “you’d owe me a lot more than one cup of coffee.”

Tony points at the couch again, raising his eyebrows pointedly. Phil goes but not because Tony tells him. It’s because he’s tired and he read somewhere that even just closing his eyes is better than nothing.

He’s not expecting to drift off but it seems like no time has passed at all before Tony quietly says, “Agent, your coffee.”

He lifts his head, preparing for another long day—Strike Team Delta is heading out today—and takes a look at his coffee. It looks wrong, somehow. He frowns down at it.

“What is this?”

“Black coffee,” Tony replies. The “duh” is implied.

“You never give me black coffee.”

He doesn’t mean to sound petulant but that’s almost exactly what happens.

“Contrary to what everyone seems to think, I do actually know when my antics aren’t wanted.”

Phil frowns down at the cup and then up at Tony. “I know that,” he says quietly. He hadn’t meant to imply—

“Drink your coffee, Phil,” Tony tells him. “I’ll have something new for you tomorrow.”

He’s almost all the way out the door before he realizes that Tony called him Phil. Huh. He’s never done that before.

He turns back and says, “See you tomorrow, Tony.”


	9. Winteriron; Royalty AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For furthermadness

He finds the missive on the massive bed when the butler—not Jeeves but something similar—shows him to his room. The bedroom is opulent, larger than Bucky’s entire suite back home, and he nearly misses the note when he first glances around the room but when he sits on the bed, something crinkles. He rolls off the note and picks it up. It’s written on nice parchment, perfumed with something light and flowery.

_My room at 8. Third floor balcony if you can manage it. Secret passage through the painting above your bed if you can’t._

It’s in an unfamiliar handwriting but there’s only one person that it could be: Tony. The prince. As of tomorrow, his husband because Queen Maria had decided she was tired of feuding with Bucky’s kingdom and his own mother had decided that the best way to stop the war was through a marriage.

 _His_ marriage, specifically.

He turns to the clock in the corner of the room and notes the time. He has only a few minutes before he needs to leave if he wants to make it on time, which he does. Bucky doesn’t know why Tony wants to meet with him before the wedding but he’s intrigued by the concept. He would think that Tony would be concerned about an assassin—after all, King Howard had been killed by one—or a trick thought up by Bucky and his guards. He isn’t planning one, of course, but he _could_ be.

A few minutes before 8, he leaves, taking the balcony route partially because he needs the physical challenge to work off his jitters and partially because he knows he looks good after a few minutes of light exercise. He has to be married to Tony for the rest of his life. They might as well make the best of it.

He vaults over Tony’s balcony—one floor above his and a few balconies down—landing catlike on silent feet. Tony himself is reclining on a couch in loose pants and a thin robe tied around his waist, reading a book that Bucky recognizes as one about court politics in Bucky’s kingdom.

“Tony,” he says quietly and then waits for an invitation inside.

Tony startles, looking up from the book with wide eyes. “You actually came,” he says, sounding surprised. He puts the book down and stands, quickly walking across the room to join Bucky on the balcony.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I was worried you might think it was a trap,” Tony admits. The thought hadn’t even occurred to Bucky, too consumed as he’d been with worrying about whether _Tony_ thought it was a trap.

“I came,” he says instead of telling the prince that, spreading his arms wide so Tony can see that he’s unarmed.

“So you did,” Tony murmurs. His gaze travels down Bucky’s body, heating as it lingers on the cut of his trousers, and then back up. Bucky feels the stare as though it were a physical caress and he shivers. Tony has been regarded as one of the Continent’s most attractive men since he came of age last year and with his eyes bright and whiskey-warm, his hair tousled like he’s been running his hand through it—or like someone else has—and his skin lit golden from the firelight, Bucky finds that he can’t argue with the rumors.

“Did you know it’s considered bad luck here to see your fiancé the night before the wedding?” Tony muses, stepping back to let Bucky inside.

“And yet you invited me here,” Bucky says lightly.

“Marriage takes work. One night’s luck shouldn’t be enough to change the fate of the union,” Tony retorts.

“Hmm.” He takes a look around the room, noting the furnishings even more lavish than the ones inside his room, the rich red and gold colors of the drapes, the foreboding portrait of King Howard above the fireplace. His eyes linger on the portrait, wondering what could have enticed Tony to keep such a picture in his room.

Tony follows his gaze and laughs bitterly. “Howard had it put there when he was alive to keep me from misbehaving and tradition dictates that all portraits of the late king cannot be removed until his children’s children sit on the throne,” he explains.

Bucky winces sympathetically. He loves both of his parents dearly but there have been rumors circulating King Howard for as long as he’s been alive, rumors about the kind of man the king had been and how few people had mourned his assassination.

“Cheese?” Tony asks, changing the subject as he moves back toward the table in the back of the room. “I had wine brought up but I don’t know if you want to drink tonight.”

Maybe it’s supposed to be a poisoning attempt but if it is, it’s a poor one because before Bucky can respond, Tony has taken a piece of cheese off the plate and popped it in his mouth. “Just the cheese,” he says, wanting to be polite. He’s not overly fond of southern wine, preferring his country’s ale instead.

Tony shrugs and brings the plate back with him to the couch. He sits down, lounging against the armrest unconcernedly. Bucky sits a little slower, less comfortable in a room that isn’t his own. They sit there in awkward silence for a minute, then two, before Bucky breaks.

“Why did you ask me up here?”

Tony stares at him for a long time, long enough that Bucky thinks he’s ignoring the question before he finally says quietly, “I wanted to know if you were still the same person I remember from Aunt Peggy’s.”

Bucky nearly spits out his cheese. “You _remember_ that?” he exclaims. He hadn’t been sure if Tony would. Tony had been so young when he stopped visiting Peggy, Tony’s godmother and Bucky’s mother’s advisor, every summer. Bucky, who had spent much of his childhood at Peggy’s countryside manor, had missed his best friend but Tony had never written and then their countries had gone to war and that had been the end of that.

“Not at first,” Tony admits. “But then Mama said something about it when she announced the betrothal and…” He stops, biting his lip, and then continues, “I just wanted to know if you were still you.”

“And am I?” Bucky asks curiously.

Tony grins. “Not sure yet. Are you still terrible at chess?”


	10. Stuckony; Pirates AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by rinkitsune

“Buck,” Steve calls.

Bucky neatly disarms Harley, who’s gaping more at Steve than he is watching Bucky. “And that’s why you should never take your eyes off your opponent,” he tells him before turning to face his captain, spotting first Steve standing at the wheel and then Redwing perched on the railing beside him. He frowns, takes two running steps, and vaults the railing to land beside Steve.

“Something up with Sam?” he asks.

Steve passes him a letter, scribbled hastily on a scrap of parchment. “The Falcon was attacked by a sea monster apparently.” He sounds rather nonchalant for discussing what used to be a mythical beast but—Bucky glances at the horizon, wondering if he can spot a flash of gold—he supposes that that’s their life now.

“What was the dumbass doing in the Devil’s Atoll?” he asks.

“Chasing down a slaver,” Steve says darkly.

Bucky glowers at nothing in particular. Sam had separated from them six months ago, wanting to put a stop to East India Trading Company’s slave trade and taking half the crew of the Avenger with him. Bucky doesn’t blame him; the _entire_ crew of the Avenger would have gone with him if it hadn’t been for Tony’s curse. As it was, Tony had urged them to go with Sam anyway, told them he could the sea witch who cursed him on his own, and they’d been tempted— _so_ tempted. But Tony’s curse had been four months along, the creeping black lines just barely starting to spider out from the blue gem in his chest, and they had no clues at all about the whereabouts of the sea witch and with them all knowing what would happen a year after the curse, Steve and Bucky hadn’t wanted to leave him.

He looks back down at the note. It’s written in code in case Redwing is ever intercepted and there’s one bit he can’t figure out. He taps the note thoughtfully. “Old friend. Who’s this old friend?”

“Don’t know,” Steve says. “But Sam knows what this mission means to us. He wouldn’t call us from it just because they’re dead in the water, not when he could write to the Asgardian instead.”

“You think it’s her?”

“It’s the first lead we’ve got,” Steve says quietly. “And Tony doesn’t have much time left.”

Bucky swallows back the overwhelming fear threatening to creep up on him, the same fear that’s gripped his heart since Tony had first appeared with a new gem in his chest and word of a curse. He still doesn’t know what drove Tony to the sea witch in the first place—he refuses to tell them, says it doesn’t matter—but he wishes to a god he doesn’t believe in anymore that Tony hadn’t gone.

“Can you let him know we’re changing course?” Steve asks him.

He nods and goes over to the railing, crooning, “Angelfish,” into the dark depths.

There’s a moment, then a glimmer of something gold flashing as it catches the light. He waits, watching as the shape gets bigger and bigger until it breaks the surface, shaking water from the wet hair, gold scales shining brightly in the morning sun. Bucky hasn’t seen Tony in a few days and he’s looking worse than he was before, his skin pale and translucent, eyes sunken. Fuck but he hopes Sam was talking about the sea witch.

“Come up here, sweet thing,” Bucky murmurs, “let me say hello to you.”

Tony, a veritable genius in both mermaid and human world, had installed a pulley system on the side of the ship to help him get up to the deck. He uses it now to pull himself up, Bucky helping by pulling on the ropes as well. Bucky uses the grip he has on the rope to pull Tony closer to him once he’s high enough, brushing an air-light kiss over Tony’s pale lips.

“What news?” Tony asks tiredly. He always sounds tired these days.

“Sam has a lead on a witch and a monster in the Devil’s Atoll. We’re changing course.”

Tony hums thoughtfully, kisses Bucky again as he thinks. Bucky’s sure he knows what he’s thinking about. It had been the first place they checked after Tony’s curse, the small group of islands where Tony had found the sea witch. She hadn’t been there, of course, but it had been near the Devil’s Atoll.

“I’m gonna trade off with Stevie,” Bucky tells him. “He’s been up all night.”

“Send him over?” Tony asks. “I want to say good morning.”

“You got it, Angelfish.”

He sends Steve over to the merman, letting the soothing sounds of their quiet whispers drift over him. Steve and Tony met each other first, after Steve had been thrown overboard in a storm and Tony had helped him find his way back to the Avenger. It had taken them nearly two months and by the end of it, they’d been smitten with each other. Bucky had been surprised to hear that his captain, his friend, his _lover_ had fallen in love with a merman, something that wasn’t even supposed to exist but then he’d met Tony, talked to him, and it hadn’t taken him long either to fall in love.

Tony is one of a kind, special, the kind of person you can’t help but love. He can’t bear the thought of losing him. That’s why, when they find that sea witch, as soon as she lifts Tony’s curse, he’s going to run his sword through her black heart. No more of that cursing the love of Bucky’s life nonsense. Tony means too much to him for that.


	11. Stevetony; Farm/Ranch AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by warmachinesocks

“You can pick out one jar of jam,” Steve hears and immediately perks up. He hates saying that he has a favorite customer but he absolutely does. It’s just so hard _not_ to like Tony when he always has a quick and ready smile for Steve and a compliment about whatever he’s selling this month. He thinks they’ve been flirting too but Steve has always been bad at figuring out that kind of thing so he never says anything about it.

Tony turns the corner, leading a little girl wearing a _Frozen_ shirt by the hand, and Steve smiles brightly, waving at the two of them. He’s heard tons of stories about Tony’s beloved daughter—and about her mom, who is apparently just a surrogate and actually spends her time running Tony’s company, as the man had seen fit to tell him. He hasn’t had a chance yet to meet the girl since Tony’s only been coming to the market for the last six months and school has been going on but it’s June now and school has been out for two weeks.

“Hi Steve!” Tony says brightly.

“Hey Tony! You gonna tell me who this little lady is?”

Tony gently nudges the girl’s shoulder. “Are you gonna introduce yourself, Miss Morgan?”

She looks up at her dad, blinks, and promptly sticks her thumb in her mouth. Steve laughs as Tony just shakes his head. “That’s alright, I’ll bet I can guess. Let’s see…obviously, you’re Queen Elsa.”

Morgan giggles and shakes her head.

“Princess Anna?”

She laughs even harder. “No, I’m Morgan,” she says, still giggling through her words.

“Well, that’s even better,” he tells her. He kneels beside her. “And how old are you, Morgan?”

She holds up five fingers.

“Five!” he gasps.

“No you’re not, silly goose,” Tony says fondly. “Your birthday isn’t until next week.”

She holds up four fingers.

“Four years old!” he exclaims. “And with a birthday coming up too. Guess I’ll just have to give you an early birthday present. How does a free jar of jam sound?”

“Jam!” Morgan shouts and runs over to the table. There’s a stepstool under the booth for the kids and Steve slides it out so that she can stand on top of it to look at the jam.

“You don’t have to do that,” Tony says quietly. “I can pay.”

“You’re my favorite customer,” Steve says easily. “What’s the point of having favorites if I can’t give you a jar of jam sometimes?”

Much to his surprise, Tony blushes a little. “Thank you then. I know this is your income.”

Steve makes a soft enh sound. “I had a higher yield than usual this year so it’s not much of a hardship.”

“Oh? I didn’t realize you have an actual farm.”

“Orchard, technically. About four miles outside of the city. It was my granddad’s and when he died, he left it to me.”

“Do you like it out there?”

Steve glances at him, wondering if he’s just being polite but Tony looks like he’s genuinely curious so he says, “I miss the city sometimes. I grew up in Brooklyn and the orchard’s a lot different.”

“I bet it’s quieter.”

He chuckles. “Not really. It’s just loud in a different way.” He glances at Morgan picking through the jars of jam, looking for the one she wants. “She seems great.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, smiling fondly. “I love her to pieces. What about you? Don’t think I’ve ever asked if you’ve got kids.”

“Nope, got a dog though.”

“Morgan wants a dog.”

“I think most kids do,” Steve comments. Tony laughs and says, “Yeah, that’s probably true. My building won’t let us have one though.”

“Don’t you…own the building?”

“Own the…?” Tony frowns, furrowing his brow. “Oh! We don’t live in Stark Tower anymore. It just wasn’t a good place to raise a kid so I moved out.”

Steve’s heart just melts at the idea of Tony deciding to move homes just so he could have a better environment for Morgan. That’s probably why, before he can think about it, he offers, “If she wants to spend time with a dog, you’re both more than welcome to come out to the orchard.”

Tony gapes at him for a moment, mouth open and everything, and Steve winces. Okay, so maybe that was a little creepy. He’s just getting ready to take it back and apologize when Morgan calls, “Dad!”

“What’s up, Maguna? Pick out what you want?” Tony says, dragging his eyes away from Steve.

“Peaches!” she says cheerfully, shoving a jar under Tony’s nose. “Just like you!”

“Peaches?” Steve asks curiously.

To his surprise, Tony goes bright red and stammers out, “Oh, um, it’s what her mom calls me…because of my, um—” He cuts off and looks slightly behind him. Steve follows his gaze to— _oh_.

Oh, _those_ peaches.

“Well, they’re really nice peaches, you know?” he says faintly, distracted by Tony’s bubble butt. Then he stops, thinks about what he just said as Tony chokes, and says, “ _No!_ I didn’t mean to—”

“You said you live four miles outside of the city?” Tony interrupts.

Steve snaps his mouth shut. “Yes?”

“Um, so tell me if I’m overstepping here, but how does tonight sound? I’ll bring dinner,” Tony offers.

Steve stares at him, long enough that Tony squirms uncomfortably and then he bellows, “ _Yes!_ ”

Tony laughs. “Great,” he says relievedly. “Oh! Phone number, you need a phone number, thank you darling.” He takes the paper Morgan is waving in his face, scribbles a number on it, and passes it over to Steve. “I’ll call you later today? We can talk about a good time to show up?”

“Sounds great,” Steve breathes. He has a date. Sort of. He thinks it’s a date. Right? “This is a date, right?”

Tony nods a little, smiling sweetly.

“Great.”

“Great,” Tony echoes. “So I’ll see you then?”

Steve nods, unable to get the goofy grin off his face.

“Great.”


	12. Pepperonywidow; Crime AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary. Yes, I know I'm running behind but I'm still more on schedule than I thought I would be by this point so I'll take it

Natasha looks at the room and then back down at her phone. Looks at the room and back down. There they are, Ms. Potts’ instructions, clear as day: _It’s the only item of value in the room_.

She looks back up. The room still hasn’t changed: austere furniture save for a drafting table in the corner, bare walls, and there, lounging on the bed and smirking amusedly at her, is the only item of value in the room—Tony Stark, last seen two years ago before his father decided he was too ill to be allowed out of the house.

“No,” she states.

“Yep,” he replies, popping the “p.”

“No.”

“’fraid so.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because dear old dad decided that I needed to stay inside so he could milk every last penny out of me that he could.”

She blinks twice. “He did that?”

Tony shifts uncomfortably and glances away. “It’s not like any of the last few products out of SI have been his,” he mutters. “The only reason I could get through to Pepper was because she snuck a phone in before Howard locked me up.”

“But this is kidnapping, you know that, right?” she asks, suddenly worried that she’s been set up to take the fall for Tony’s disappearance.

“It’s not,” he assures her, holding up an envelope. “I’ve written a letter for them so it’s technically running away.”

Natasha sincerely doubts that but she also realizes that this is probably a last-ditch final attempt to get him away. The few seconds she’s seen of Tony, she already knows that he’s prone to flights of fancy but her interactions with Ms. Potts tells her that it’s likely the cops have been called before—and that it was wholly unsuccessful at getting him out.

“Why haven’t you tried to escape before?” she asks.

He chews on the corner of his lip. “I tried,” he admits, “but I couldn’t get out of the tower. I, um, I’m a little scared of heights. I need help.”

“You know you could have just said that you needed help running away. There are plenty of thieves who could have helped,” she argues, running through the list of people she knows in her mind. Clint, especially, would have been willing to help.

Tony shakes his head. “Pepper said she tried but everyone we told acted like you did—like it was a kidnapping—and turned us away. You’re our last attempt.”

Offended, she asks, “ _Last?_ ”

He looks dubious at her. “Well, you’re a little young.”

“I’m eighteen,” she sniffs. “And I’m well-established.” There isn’t a law enforcement agency out there that doesn’t already know the name Black Widow, something that she’s extremely proud of.

Tony doesn’t look reassured. “Uh-huh. Look, I turn eighteen in two days and Howard is planning on having me declared mentally unfit so he can keep control of me. Really, Nat, this is the only chance I’ve got. I just need you to get me to Pep. She’s got a plan.”

She looks at him sadly, wants to tell him no, that it’s too much of a risk for her, but she already knows she’s going to say yes. Stupid Clint giving her stupid morals. This was much easier when she was working for Alexei.

“Fine,” she snaps. “But I’m not just leaving you with her. She’s going to get you both killed if she can’t even find someone honest enough to help you escape.”

“Really?” Tony asks, perking up. He sounds much too excited for someone who’s just been told that his girlfriend was going to get them killed with her ignorance of the criminal underbelly. “You’re coming with us?”

Oh. That’s—he was talking about her joining them. That probably shouldn’t give her as much of a warm, fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach as it does.

“Yes,” she says decisively. “I will keep you alive.”

“Aww that’s so sweet of you,” Tony coos. He bounds up from the bed and throws his arms around her.

“No! I’m not sweet!” she says waspishly, trying to struggle out of his grip but he’s surprisingly strong for someone who hasn’t left a tower in two years.

“You are but that’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”

Natasha gives up and lets him hug her. This is apparently her life now.


	13. Winterironhawk; Rock Band AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary

Bucky checks his phone as he staggers down the hallway, Clint’s arm wrapped around his waist. Performing always takes a lot out of him and tonight’s show in New York was particularly hard since he and Steve are homeboys and Clint always likes to play that up.

“You doing okay?” Clint asks and then nearly walks right into a trashcan.

Bucky rolls his eyes. For all of Clint’s grace on the stage, he’s far more clumsy off of it. “Maybe I should be asking you that.”

“Hey, that trashcan jumped right out in front of me,” Clint snarks.

“Oh sure and I’ll bet a big green monster even pushed it, right?”

“Boys, boys, settle down,” Nat says idly, twirling her drumsticks like she’s going to hit one of them with it. Bucky wouldn’t put it past her; she’s done so before.

Clint maturely sticks his tongue out at her, eliciting a sigh from Steve, walking a few steps behind them, and a laugh from Sam. Nat just whacks Clint over the head with one of the drumsticks.

Bucky rolls his eyes again and goes back to his phone. Children, he works with children. He’s got one notification, a text from Tony. He grins, unable to resist smiling at the notification. Tony always sends them something during the show. He calls it his good luck selfie. Bucky calls it incentive to hurry back to the hotel room. He opens the text, expecting to see Tony in whatever god-awful city-themed lingerie he’s picked up for this leg of the tour, and instead sees a brief reminder that he and Clint have that interview with Everhart before they’re done for the night.

“Did Tony text us?” Clint asks, hooking his chin over Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky tilts his phone so he can read the message and Clint frowns. “That’s not his usual message.”

“More of those lingerie photos?” Sam asks. Bucky scowls at him. It’s bad enough that Sam accidentally saw one of Tony’s pictures but now he teases them about it after every show like Tony isn’t still the hottest thing they ever saw even when he’s wearing Big Ben panties.

“No,” Clint pouts. “Just some dumb message about that interview we’ve got.”

Sam catches up to them and glances over the message. “Hmm maybe he’s finally wised up and dumped your sorry asses so he can go out with me instead.”

Bucky growls, thrusts his phone into Clint’s chest, and takes off after a cackling Sam all the way down the hall to the room the venue set aside for the interview where he finally catches up to him. He’s giving Sam a noogie when the rest of the band joins them.

“Buck, let Sam go,” Steve orders. The bassist shouldn’t be allowed to give him directions, he laments in his mind but everyone knows that you don’t disobey a Steve order so he drops his arms, holding his hands up in surrender. Sam scrambles away from him to duck behind Nat, who takes one step to the side so she’s no longer hiding him.

“So we’ll see you back at the green room?” Nat asks him and Clint.

“Sure you don’t want to do this interview with us?” Clint asks.

She laughs. “Not on your life.” Fair enough. Everhart always gives them hardball questions so most of the band doesn’t do interviews with her if she doesn’t specifically ask for them and this time she’d only asked for him and Clint.

He passes his guitar off to Steve and then shoulders through the door, Clint right on his heels. Everhart is waiting for them just inside, looking as perfectly polished as ever for someone who just came from a rock concert.

“Ma’am,” he says politely because his ma raised a nice boy and also because it irritates the hell out of Everhart to be referred to like an old lady.

Sure enough she purses her lips and he bites back a grin. He sits down in the seat she waves him into, Clint sitting beside him so he can throw his legs over Bucky’s lap, and asks, “So what did you want to ask us?”

As they expected, Everhart starts them out with small questions and twenty minutes later, they’ve covered just about everything under the sun, from their upcoming album to this tour to their fanbase on Twitter and Bucky’s starting to think that maybe they’re going to get out of this easily when she asks, “So rumors are building again that your relationship is in trouble. What do you have to say to those allegations?”

Bucky scowls and Clint tenses beside him. The problem is, after an entire childhood spent in the spotlight, Tony denounced his claim to his father’s empire, disappeared into the shadows, and declared to his friends that he never wanted to be famous again. Bucky and Clint had never had a problem with it but that had been before the band took off. Afterwards, things had gotten a little more tricky. They still didn’t _really_ have a problem with it and they certainly weren’t going to push Tony to do something he didn’t want to do but it was difficult having to pretend to the world that Bucky and Clint were the couple and Tony was just a friend who tagged along on tour sometimes but otherwise spent most of his time at a Montessori school in Manhattan teaching small children how to read.

They don’t want to push—they _don’t_ —but the distance means that it’s hard sometimes to keep their hands off their other boyfriend in public.

And sometimes they forget that they’re not nobodies anymore and somebody takes a picture of Bucky’s hand lingering on the small of Tony’s back and posts it to Twitter because heaven forbid celebrities have any sort of private life.

“They’re just rumors,” Clint says easily. “We’re touchy feely kind of people.”

“Maybe _you’re_ touchy feely,” Bucky says with a laugh that he doesn’t feel. “ _I’ve_ been told I exude fuck off vibes.”

Everhart smiles thinly. “So that’s all it is. Just three friends having a good time?”

“Ma’am, you’ve seen the way Clint and I interact on stage. You really think we could hide another relationship for so long?” Bucky deadpans, challenging her to say something.

She frowns again but doesn’t dispute his claim. Instead she packs up and says, “As always, a pleasure getting to interview you.” As she’s leaving, she pauses in the door to tell them, “You’re not nearly as slick as you think you are. One of you is going to mess up and then your whole faked-for-the-cameras relationship will be over.”

Bucky snarls and lunges at the door, stopped only by Clint grabbing onto him. He _hates_ it when people insinuate that somehow, because he and Clint are happy, they’re faking their relationship for publicity. He and Clint spent enough of their childhoods unhappy because of Bucky’s dad and Clint’s brother; why would they want to spent their adulthood just as miserable?

“It doesn’t matter,” Clint soothes though he has to be irritated as Bucky is. “Come on, we’re going to go back to the rest of the band. We’re going to get drunk on whatever shitty vodka Nat’s brought this time and then we’re going to go back to the hotel and fuck Tony through the mattress.”

It startles a laugh out of Bucky but he’s still not in a great mood by the time they reach the green room. “I just don’t see why she has to say things like that,” he complains as he pushes open the door. “It’s—”

He stops as his gaze falls on the person draped over Nat’s lap. Clint runs into him with an “Oof” and a “Bucky, what the fuck?”

“Tony, doll?” Bucky asks.

Clint exclaims, “ _Tony?”_

Tony launches himself out of Nat’s chair and at Bucky, who immediately catches him up in a kiss. “Hey, my turn, my turn,” Clint protests, pawing at the two of them. “I haven’t seen Tony in six hours either.”

He thinks he hears Nat say, “Disgustingly cute,” but he’s too busy watching Clint and Tony kiss to really care.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, pressing another kiss to Tony’s earlobe. Tony doesn’t usually come to their shows. He tried once not long after their first album came out but he’d been kidnapped one (or twenty) too many times at a big event to really feel comfortable. He had left less than half an hour in and when Bucky and Clint had come back to the hotel that night, they’d found Tony in one of the worst anxiety attacks they’d ever seen him in. They never asked him to come to another show.

“Wanted to support you two since I know how much you hate Everhart,” Tony replies.

“He got here only a few minutes before the show ended,” Steve says. “Sharon drove him.”

Bucky gives a quick nod to Steve’s girlfriend, silently thanking her. “You didn’t have to do that, doll,” he murmurs.

“Hmm missed you too much,” Tony replies. “This tour is too long.”

“Alright, come on, we’re blocking the door,” Clint tells the two of them, walking them backward to one of the couches. He trips over his own feet and practically falls onto the couch, catching Tony before he can fall too. Bucky lands next to them, curling up into Clint’s side.

He catches Nat taking a picture of the three of them and frowns at her. She should know better than to post it. A moment later, his phone chimes with a text from her. _Don’t worry, I’m not that stupid_ , her text reads and he flashes her an apologetic grin. Maybe he’s just little on edge from Everhart.

It chimes again, this time with the picture she’d taken of them. He smiles down at it and makes it his phone’s home screen. It’s a cute picture of them and no one can get into his phone anyway so he’s not worried about someone seeing that.

“You should be paying attention to me,” Tony pouts. “What are you doing?”

He leans over and shows him the picture, brushing a kiss over Tony’s cheek as he does. Tony takes the phone and stares at it before saying, “We’re cute in that. Send it to me.”

“Okay, doll,” he agrees, relaxing into the couch and letting Tony’s warmth bleed into him, relaxing him from the stress of the show and interview.


	14. Winteriron; Vampire AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by dr-stxrk
> 
> Warning for some rapey undertones but not by any of the main characters

There are some vampires out there who gives vampires in general a bad name. Those are the kind of vampires who suck your blood without asking and wait for unsuspecting passerby in dark alleys and use their thralls not to help kittens down from trees but on their chosen victim for the night.

Bucky isn’t like that.

Bucky runs a bar for other vampires but also for the occasional _willing_ human donor who steps foot in his taproom looking for a bit of danger to spice up their night. He likes humans; they’re his main food source and make such cool things besides that. He can’t imagine why some people think that vampires should be ruling the world. They can’t even go out in the daylight.

“Buck, we’ve got a live one,” Steve mutters to him as he passes by, another keg hoisted over his shoulder.

He follows his gaze to a couple in the corner: one Tiberius Stone, one of the worst vampires Bucky has ever had the misfortune of meeting, and one cute little human with curly brown hair and big whiskey eyes that seem oddly dulled in the low light of the bar. In the next instant, Stone crooks his finger and the human sways toward him and Bucky thinks _aw fuck_.

Stone’s got him under his thrall.

He’s had issues with the guy before but Stone has never been so brazen as to bring someone he’s enthralled into the bar, considering it’s no thrall stance. He finishes with the drink in front of him and heads out from behind the bar, ignoring the people calling after him. They’ll pipe down as soon as they see what he’s doing anyway.

He stops beside Stone’s table, hands on his hips. “What do you think you’re doing, Stone?” he demands.

Stone glares up at him, angry from the interruption. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m getting a drink.” He starts to bend his head towards the human’s neck, stopped at the last second by Nat suddenly appearing beside Bucky and baring her fangs at him. He stops and gives her a wary look. Nat, unlike most other vampires, is a turned vampire, the result of a thrall gone bad and a born vampire wanting to avoid a murder charge. She’s big on things like consent.

“Doesn’t look like that to me,” she snaps. “It looks like you couldn’t get a ‘yes’ so you made one.”

Stone sneers. “Look at him. You telling me you wouldn’t want to take a bite out of him?”

Bucky glances at the human and is about bowled over by how pretty he is. _Yes_ he wants to drink from him but only if those gorgeous eyes are lucid and understanding of what he’s doing to him. Being drunk from can be orgasmic under the right circumstances and Bucky wants this pretty human to feel every last bit of it.

“Not if he can’t consent to it,” he says. “You know thralls aren’t legal in this part of the city.”

“Maybe I didn’t enthrall him in this part of the city, you ever think about that?” Stone mocks.

“So then you brought him here. You see how this isn’t better, right?” Bucky asks.

“If it’s such a problem, then I can take him elsewhere,” Stone says, starting to stand, his hand on the human’s wrist.

“No!” Bucky shouts, his own hand shooting out to stop them. “You’re going to give him the choice, right here, right now about going with you.”

“But he won’t—” Stone stops and Bucky can fill in the blanks: he won’t say yes if Stone gives him the option. His lips curls in disgust and he forcibly pulls Stone out of the booth, over the table, and passes him off to Nat.

“Get him out of my sight,” he snarls. When Stone starts to protest, he snarls, fangs flashing and eyes turning red in an instant. Just because Bucky owns a bar, that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous and the Barnes are one of the oldest families out there.

Once Stone is gone, he kneels in front of the enthralled human and croons, “Sweet thing. Come on back now.”

He sees it happen slowly, the dullness leaving his eyes, the glimmer of fear as he realizes he doesn’t know where he is, and then the human is scrambling backward, pressing himself flat against the wall.

“It’s okay,” Bucky says softly. “He’s gone. You’re okay.”

He keeps up the soothing stream of words, waiting until the human’s trembling has gone down and the stink of fear isn’t so prevalent in the air to say, “Can I sit with you, honey?”

“Are you like him?” the human asks, barely audible even to Bucky’s enhanced hearing.

“I’m a vampire,” he allows, showing a little bit of fang. Interestingly, that’s not what has the human smelling scared again. So he’s not against vampires as a whole then. “But I’m not going to hurt you. I can get my own partners without needing to enthrall them, thank you very much.”

To his surprise, and relief, the human giggles and then nods, shifting over so Bucky has room to sit next to him.

“What’s your name, sweet thing?” he asks.

The human blushes and Bucky finds his eyes drawn to the pink flush on his cheeks. “Tony,” the human eventually says.

“Well Tony,” Bucky says. “I’m Bucky and I promise you, I’ll never let that vampire hurt you again."


	15. Pepperony; Role Reversal AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by anon

“Ms. Potts?” her assistant asks and Pepper groans as she gets up from her desk.

“Another meeting?”

“Yep, ‘fraid so,” he says.

“Walk with me, Tony.”

She sets off down the hall at a clipped pace, Tony practically jogging beside her to keep up. Pepper has never believed in making herself shorter for the egos of the men around her. It’s a great strategy in the boardroom but it does mean that poor Tony is a good five inches shorter than her when she’s in heels.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” she asks as they wait for the elevator.

“The meeting with R&D in ten minutes,” he says.

“And you’re not going to embarrass them this time, right?” she interrupts.

“Of course not, Pep, what do you take me for?” he demurs but she sees that impish grin on his face. She sighs and rolls her eyes. The thing is, Tony’s smarter than just about everyone else in the entire company. She’d made him her PA after he caught an error in one of their products going to market, one that would have spelled the loss of several million dollars for the company and likely the lives of some of the people using their product. Some CEOs would have taken that as an acceptable loss, not Pepper though. She’d fired the people responsible for the faulty product and promoted Tony to her PA. Poor guy though—he’d had to leave behind his beloved R&D.

“Just…make sure none of them cry this time?” she asks. The elevator arrives and they step on.

He raises an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I be telling you that for this afternoon’s board meeting?”

She groans again. “That’s _today?”_

“Yep. After R&D, you have a business lunch with Rhodes, Inc.”

“With Jim and Happy?”

“Mmhmm. And then you’ve got a meeting with Advanced Idea Mechanics but I think whatever they’re proposing, you should turn them down. I’ve met their lead scientist and I’m worried about her sacrificing ethics for progress. And then after that, you’ve got the board meeting.”

“Delightful,” she says dryly.

There’s a soft ding and the elevator doors open. Tony stands aside to let her off first and then hurries to catch up with as she goes back to her quick pace.

“Anything else on today’s agenda?” she asks.

“You were supposed to have an evening meeting but it’s your anniversary so the meeting has been pushed back to tomorrow instead.”

She stops and looks at him. “It’s my anniversary?”

He nods, grinning knowingly at her. The problem with being a CEO of a major company is that she tends to struggle with remembering things going on in her own life. Fortunately, that’s what she has Tony for.

“Did I remember to get him something?”

“You did actually. Right after your last anniversary because you felt bad you didn’t get him something then.”

They stop in front of R&D’s doors and she pauses. “How do I look?”

Tony reaches out and straightens her suit jacket. “Like you’re about to make a bunch of men cry for their mommies.”

Pepper smiles shark-like. “Perfect,” she purrs. She notices that Tony’s own tie is crooked and reaches out to straighten it. “Are you coming with me?”

He shakes his head. “You gave me the rest of the day off, remember?” Oh that’s right. She’d forgotten that. “Dinner is at 7. I’m sending a car to pick you up so don’t be late.”

“I would never.”

And she wouldn’t. Tony has a penchant for being late to everything but even when things slip Pepper’s mind, she’s never late to them.

She leans down and kisses Tony lightly on the lips. “I’ll see you tonight then.”

“Will that be all, Miss Potts?”

“That’ll be all, Mr. Stark.”


	16. Winterironfalcon; Treasure Hunting AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary
> 
> This is a companion piece to Marvels Unsolved

“Hello, my lovelies!” Tony calls into the camera over the crunch of the gravel below their feet. “Every season Bucky and I do one episode where we go treasure hunting because he feels bad that he keeps making me hunt demons so this season, we’re in New Jersey where we’re looking for the treasure of Captain William Kidd.”

He stops, looks over at Sam, and says, “How’s that?”

Sam plays back through the recording, head tilted thoughtfully, and then nods. “Yeah that’ll do.”

They’ve done this take a couple times what with the issues of the wind and the rocks they’re walking over. They had tried it standing still but it had come off as way too stilted so they’d tried something else with Sam taking shots of them only from the waist up and both him and Bucky walking tiptoe to try to minimize the sounds of their walking. This time it must have worked.

Relieved, Tony drops back down to his feet. “Great,” he says emphatically.

“You can say that again,” Bucky mutters grumpily. “I’m not Natasha, Sam. I can’t walk like that forever.”

“If you wanted to do normal stuff, then you shouldn’t have become a ghost hunter,” Sam snarks back.

Bucky pauses. “Aw shit, am I a ghost hunter? Fuck, I am, aren’t I?” he laments. “Tones, babe, I don’t want to be a ghost hunter.”

He throws his arms around Tony’s waist and sobs noisily into his shoulder. Tony gives Sam an unimpressed look and pats Bucky’s shoulder. “There, there, do you want me to kiss it and make it better?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Bucky says, perking up immediately. He uses his grip on Tony’s waist to pull him for a long, thorough kiss that has Tony moaning by the end of it.

“Don’t mind me,” Sam calls. “I’m still rolling over here.”

“Mmm that’s hot,” Bucky mutters into his ear. “Babe, we should make a sex tape.”

“We absolutely should not,” Tony says, wiggling out of his arms. He darts over to Sam and kisses him as well, just as long as Bucky’s had been though a little more chaste—Sam isn’t nearly as much of an exhibitionist as Bucky is.

“I bet our fans would pay for it.”

“I bet they would too and that’s exactly why we shouldn’t. Besides, we’d never be able to get Sam in it and I refuse to make a sex tape without him.”

Sam shrugs. “I’d make a sex tape with _you_. _That_ loser on the other hand…”

He trails off as Bucky growls and lunges at him, pulling him in for a kiss just as thorough as the one he’d given Tony. Tony, for his part, just sighs happily and watches them. He’d never dreamed he would get to have it when he’d first found out Bucky and Sam were seeing each other but three years later, here they are and they’re _happy_ , he’d never known he could be this happy.

“Alright, come on, we haven’t got all day,” he says eventually.

“We have actually,” Bucky points out as he breaks apart from Sam and joins him. “That’s literally the point of this.”

Tony glares at him. Bucky holds up an apologetic hand.

“Sam, you good back there?” Tony calls as they set back out along the beach.

“I’m good. I’m going to keep rolling,” he tells them, “while we walk. Footage for bloopers, ya know?”

 _Marvels_ had asked them a few weeks ago if they could start airing some of the unused footage since apparently, it was something that the fans wanted to see. They’ll still have to do some editing of the footage because Sam talks a lot more than what actually appears on the show but it’s not like they throw any of it away so there’s no reason they can’t keep the unused footage and make a blooper reel out of it.

“So tell me a little bit about the treasure,” Bucky says, picking his way over the rocks.

“You’ll hear most of it once we get there.”

“Yeah but it’s the only topic coming to mind unless you want me to talk about that thing Sam did with his tongue last night that made you scream.”

Sam chokes on a laugh and Tony hisses a scandalized, “ _Bucky!”_

“I’m just saying, it was really hot and I want to see if you can make that noise again.”

“Fine!” Tony says, throwing up his hands. “Kidd’s treasure is under a lot of controversy and we’re going to gloss over a lot of it during the show so I’ll just tell you now. There’s been a couple different times where people think they’ve found the treasure—the Smithsonian even wrote an article about it back in 2015—but no one’s been able to definitively prove it’s his.”

“Why?”

“Because I guess underwater treasure hunting is a lot of guesswork. I don’t really know but there’s a pretty cool Nat Geo series about it that we could watch tonight.”

“Underwater treasure hunting or Captain Kidd?” Sam asks.

Tony looks back at him to say, “Underwater treasure hunting.”

Sam shrugs as he glances at Bucky to confirm, “Sounds fine.”

“No, not fine,” Bucky complains. “I was gonna see if Sam would do that tongue—”

“ _Bucky!_ ” Sam and Tony both shout.


	17. Ironhusbands; Firefighters AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeunordinary

There may have been a fire.

A teensy-weensy, itty-bitty, tiny fire.

And it may have been Tony’s fault.

Maybe.

But who can blame him when there’s _science_ to be done? So anyway it may have been Tony’s fault that he turned away from the oven to help Harley on his science project and got distracted and forgot that there were cookies in the oven until they were already on fire.

But that’s why God made firefighters, right?

Gorgeous firefighters with dark eyes that Tony could get lost in and muscles that he wants to wrap his arms around and a stern voice that he wants to hear giving him orders and—

And he’s getting distracted.

And there’s a young woman washing down the firetruck staring at him oddly. He doesn’t blame her. He knows what he looks like when his mind is on other things and it’s a very weird face. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“Hi!” he chirps, almost reaching out his hand before he remembers that he’s holding onto cookies and he doesn’t want to drop them. “I just came by to drop off some cookies. Your station was sent out to help me a few days ago when my oven caught on fire and—”

“Oh _you’re_ Tony,” she says, a knowing grin spreading across her face.

He pauses. “Yes?”

“Jim hasn’t been able to shut up about you all week,” she tells him with an air of knowing confidence.

“ _Jim?_ Who the fuck is _Jim?_ ”

She laughs. “That’s right, he said you call him Rhodey.”

“It’s better than Jim,” he grumbles and she laughs again.

“Carol Danvers,” she says and eyes the plate of cookies dubiously. “They aren’t burnt this time, right?”

He shakes his head. “I kept an eye on them.”

“Good! Then they’ll be a big hit.”

She slings an arm around his shoulder and leads him inside, chattering about the little old lady who nearly burns down her house every time she bakes brownies for her grandchildren but always thinks the firefighters with a plate of more (burned) brownies and about Rhodey’s favorite places to eat and how firefighters always know the best gossip and about Rhodey’s favorite date activities and—Tony’s starting to see a theme here.

“Jim!” she sing-songs as they walk into the breakroom. “Look who I found!”

And then there he is: the firefighter of Tony’s dreams, the hero of the hour, Mr. Honeybear himself—Rhodey!

He sighs happily, getting lost in those eyes all over again, and completely misses the way Rhodey blushes when the person next to him elbows him knowingly.

“Tony!” Rhodey squeaks and then clears his throat. “Uh—I mean, Tony,” he continues in a nice, normal tone. Tony sighs again. “What brings you here?”

Carol surreptitiously hits him on the back when he doesn’t respond.

“Oh! I brought you cookies!” He thrusts the plate out in front of them. “They’re science cookies cause Harley’s learning about elements in class so they’re shaped like water molecules.”

“Oh my god, that’s adorable,” someone mutters but Tony only has eyes for Rhodey.

“I wanted to bring them over to thank you for saving my life.”

“Uh, right,” Rhodey starts to say and Tony can feel his smile dimming. Rhodey must not like them. He must still be upset with Tony for almost setting fire to his house. He doesn’t like him even though even Harley had said that they had a connection. Someone shoves Rhodey in the back, sending him stumbling forward.

“They look great!” Rhodey exclaims. “But there’s no need to thank me; I was just doing my job.”

This isn’t going the way he had planned. He had thought that Rhodey would be excited about the cookies—everyone always says he makes the best ones—and then he would sweep Tony into his arms and take him right over the back of the couch—okay, so maybe he hadn’t _really_ thought that last part would happen but it was a nice fantasy. But even the first part isn’t happening. Instead, Rhodey just looks sheepish and oh. Carol must have meant that Rhodey had been talking about him in a bad way, like how ridiculous it was that Tony couldn’t even remember to keep an eye on his oven.

“It’s like a kicked puppy,” someone hisses and isn’t that just about as embarrassing as it gets?

Tony forces a smile back to his face and says, “So I’ll just leave them here then?” He remembers what Harley had wanted him to ask and wishes that he could just lie and say that he’d asked and been told no instead of having to make an idiot out of himself but Harley would know. Harley always knows. “Um, my kid—Harley—he wanted me to ask if you wanted to come over for dinner sometime. You know, make sure that I know what I’m doing with the oven and all?” he finishes with a weak laugh, tapping his fingers against his side nervously.

Rhodey blinks at him. Yeah, that’s a no.

“Okay!” he says, forcing cheerfulness when it feels like the entire world is ending. “Well, this has been great but I’m gonna go. Let’s never do this again!”

“What the fuck, Jim?” someone snaps.

“Yes!” Rhodey suddenly bellows.

Tony stops in the door and turns back. “Sorry?”

“Yes, I want to come to dinner.”

He peers at him. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Rhodey says firmly.

“Absolutely positive?”

“Yes.”

“Really, really cert—”

“Tones.” Rhodey comes around the couch in the breakroom to stand next to him. “I really want to come,” he says quietly. “Sorry, I was surprised.”

Tony smiles. “Dinner is at 6.”


	18. Ironwidow; Bodyguard AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary

“Does anyone have eyes on Tony?” Nat snaps into her comm unit.

She’s fully expecting the negative answers that she gets back from her team but it doesn’t stop her from swearing when she hears them. Fuck, she _knows_ she shouldn’t have let Tony leave the stage by himself but he’d told her that he could handle the end of his performance on his own but then the crowd had pushed forward and she’d gotten distracted trying to hold them back and there’s a stalker out there and Tony is _missing_.

Bucky had told her days ago that she was getting too attached but she dares anyone to get to know Tony beyond the interviews and the albums and the tabloids and _not_ get attached.

She swears again, tugging on her ponytail. Think, Nat, think. Okay, there’s three possibilities. One is that Tony’s stalker somehow got backstage but Clint is still reporting in and she doubts anyone could have gotten past him. The second is that Tony, despite her warnings and his reassurances, has ignored everything that she said and left the venue but he’s never once given her problems after their first week together, not after Happy got hurt. The last is that he’s still backstage somewhere where she can’t find him. That seems like the most likely one, especially knowing how bad he is with crowds.

Nat had never heard of a singer who actively despised large crowds before this contract but Tony had turned all of her assumptions upside down. He’d told her once that when he’d been younger and still mostly famous for being Howard Stark’s son, he’d been kidnapped from a large crowd. No one had noticed the screaming child being carried away—or hadn’t cared—and when Howard had refused to pay the ransom, it had cemented the trauma in his mind. He hasn’t trusted crowds since.

No, she thinks he’s likely still backstage. But that doesn’t mean that it’s okay that he’s missing.

She pulls out her second phone, the one that she told Tony she would only use for emergencies, and calls him. It takes a moment and she’s just about ready to start impatiently tapping her foot when it connects.

“Antoshka?” she asks softly. There’s a sniffle from the other end and she sighs sadly. He’s been crying. “Antoshka, are you alright?”

There’s a long moment before he says, “It was too much.”

“What was too much?” He doesn’t answer. “Tony, you have to tell me where you are. I can’t help you if I don’t know where you are.”

She hears another sniff and then he says, “They were getting too close and—”

Ah, so it _was_ the crowd.

Natasha is not usually seen as a soft person—in fact, it’s what her reviews most often say: “Will protect you but will be mean about it” and she’s never minded that—but she thinks she can be soft for Tony. At least, she wants to _try_.

“Tony, do you remember what I told you when you hired me?” she asks quietly.

He makes an assenting noise.

“What did I say?”

“You said you were going to keep me safe.”

“Did you believe me?”

He makes another assenting noise.

“Do you still believe me?”

She can hear him hesitate and she holds her breath. Backstage at this venue is like a warren. She’ll never find him if he doesn’t want to be found.

“…Yes,” he says eventually.

She breathes out a sigh of relief. “Tony, where are you?” she repeats.

“I’m above the stage,” he admits. “I wanted to watch them leave.”

She smiles to herself and says, “Okay. I’m coming to get you.”

“I’ll be here,” he promises.

There’s a time for things to be serious and a time to lighten them up. This, she thinks, is time for the latter. “You’d better be,” she warns and when Tony laughs, she thinks she chose right.


	19. Stevetony; 19th Century AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by maguna-stxrk

“All I’m saying,” Bucky says in that irritatingly placating tone that makes Steve want to pick a fight, “is that if you don’t find a spouse soon, your mother is going to find one for you and I think we both know who she’s going to pick.”

As one, they both turn and look at Sharon, happily chatting with her friends on the other side of the room. There’s nothing wrong with Sharon, of course, except that she’s the love of Sam’s life and Steve is dumb much of the time but he knows better than to go after Sam’s future wife…even if he hasn’t proposed yet.

“And what _I’m_ saying,” Steve counters, “is that I don’t know why I can’t just be a bachelor forever.”

He very carefully doesn’t look in Tony’s direction, Tony who _is_ a confirmed bachelor and has no idea that Steve thinks they would be great being confirmed bachelors together. Tony is several stations above Steve in life. He’d be lucky if Tony even knows Steve exists, let alone that Steve thinks they could be great…friends.

“Because your mother wants grandchildren.”

“But _I_ don’t want children.”

Bucky gives him an unamused look. “That doesn’t matter to mothers.”

That’s easy for him to say. Bucky married his wife three years ago. Natasha is already pregnant with their second child and Bucky couldn’t be happier. He’s been glowing since their first child was announced and hasn’t stopped since.

He glances in Tony’s direction again, only to realize that Tony isn’t there anymore—or indeed, still at the party at all. But he catches sight of him again, slipping out the door that leads into the gardens so it looks like he hasn’t left yet.

“I’m just going to—” Steve says vaguely, hooking a thumb in the direction of the garden. “Get some air.”

Bucky frowns but Steve is already moving away. He doesn’t know why he’s following Tony except that somehow Tony managed to become a bachelor even though he’s the only child of a lord and Steve wants to know how he did it. And maybe he feels like he’s running out of time to figure out something else and—

“Are you following me?”

Tony’s tone is curious, not accusing, his posture casual as he leans against the balcony. Even so, it stops Steve in his tracks. He’s heard Tony speak before at these little country dances but he’s never spoken to _him_. It’s a nice voice, the kind of voice that Steve could hear everyday for the rest of his life.

“No,” he says. “I—just—air!”

Tony glances back at the party through the windows. “Me too,” he says ruefully. “Rhodey thinks it’s good for me to get out of the workshop and interact with people but it can be a little much sometimes.”

“…Workshop?”

Apparently, it’s the right thing to say because Tony’s eyes light up and he says, “I’m working on a new fertilizer that will grow crops twice as fast but use up less soil so that we don’t have to stop using our fields after a few years.”

“That sounds interesting,” Steve says slowly, not entirely certain what Tony’s talking about. It sounds like something that’ll help the farmers who don’t have enough land to have multiple fields and rotate through their crops but he’s not certain how a fertilizer could help with that.

“It is!” Tony exclaims. “It’s—oh but it’s better if I could show you.” He looks again at the party, biting the corner of his lip. “I don’t suppose you’d maybe want to…leave and see it?”

Well, it’s not like Steve really likes parties to begin with. He’s a dreadful dancer and this _does_ sound more interesting and even if Tony doesn’t know his name, he at least knows who Steve is now and—

“It’s Steven, right?” Tony asks.

He stops. “You know my name?”

Tony smiles shyly at him. “You’re hard to miss and I thought, maybe, so then I had Pepper found out who you are and—it is Steven, yes?”

“Steve,” he says. “My friends call me Steve.”

“Are we friends, Steve?”

He bows over Tony’s hand, brushing a kiss against the back. “I hope so,” he says fervently. It’s hard to tell in the low light but he thinks Tony might be blushing. “I’d love to see what you’re working on. Do you have a carriage?”

Tony’s eyes light up again. “I have something better than a carriage.” He leads them down the stairs, into the garden, and around the side of the house, eagerly chattering about something having to do with an engine and replacing horses and—Steve doesn’t know what the expression is on his face but he bets it’s hopelessly besotted.


	20. Ironhusbands; Single Parents AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by theavengays! I was a little tipsy when I wrote this so it's a little silly

Lila has a new friend apparently.

Jim knows this because she came babbling all about the new girl in class and how they’re apparently “bestest buddies” after Morgan showed her the dolls her father got her. “And best of all, Dad, she lives _next door!”_ she finishes, flourishing at the house next to them.

“ _What?”_ Jim yelps and ducks behind their rosebushes. Because, see, the problem is, the guy who moved in next door this morning is both very attractive and very flirtatious and he and Jim have been talking all day about the neighborhood and what’s so great about it and oh would you like some of these fresh-baked cookies? And not _once_ did Tony mention that he has a child.

…Not that that’s a problem.

 _Jim_ has a child.

But see, Jim is a single parent and Tony is pretty enough that if he has a child, there’s no way someone doesn’t have that ass locked down. And Jim doesn’t feel like getting his ass kicked by Tony’s wife—or husband—or spouse if they prefer that term.

“Dad, why are you being weird?” Lila asks, hands on her hips.

He shushes her and says, “We’re gonna sneakily go into the house like super-secret spies.” _And if we’re lucky, Tony won’t notice what I’m doing._

“…No,” she says, staring down at him. “You’re being weird.”

He doesn’t know how to tell his eight year old that he was flirting with her new best friend’s dad who is almost certainly married because who wouldn’t want to be married to that?

“I’m not being—”

“Rhodey? Why are you hiding behind the rosebush?”

He closes his eyes and almost knocks his head against the bush before he remembers that roses have thorns.

“I’m not hiding,” he tells Tony.

Tony doesn’t look like he believes him. Jim doesn’t blame him.

“Uh-huh, well, Morgan came home telling me all about her new best friend and wanted me to ask if we could invite you all over for dinner so we could all get to know each other. Of course, none of the kitchen stuff is unpacked yet so I thought maybe we could treat you to a night out instead?” Tony asks, looking hopeful.

And that sounds really nice, it does, but… “Is Mrs. Stark joining us?”

Tony’s brow furrows. It’s really cute and Jim kind of wants to reach out and smooth it down. “I don’t have a Mrs. Stark. I thought I told you that earlier today.”

Maybe he did.

Maybe Jim forgot.

Either way, he perks up. Tony is _single_ and Jim is ready to _mingle…_ this is probably what Lila means when she says he’s being weird. Whatever, what good is being a parent if you can’t be weird and embarrass your child sometimes?

“Well, Lila, what do you think? Want to go out to eat?” he asks, suddenly realizing that he should probably stand up instead of remaining crouched behind the rosebush.

“What are we eating?” Lila asks. She’s going through one of those phases where she only eats certain things for months at a time. Mama says she’ll turn into a picky eater if he keeps indulging her like this but he refuses to see any shame in it. Lila’s eating and that’s all that matters.

“Cheeseburgers,” the little girl behind Tony that he hadn’t noticed at all says. “Dad and I like to get cheeseburgers every time we move.”

“That’s true,” Tony agrees. “We do.”

Jim looks down at Lila, who is currently eating exclusively bagel bites. “What do you say? Cheeseburgers acceptable?”

She tilts her head and gives him an annoyed look. “I don’t know. Are you gonna be weird at dinner too?”

Tony chokes out a laugh as Jim hisses, “ _Lila.”_

Then Morgan says, “My dad’s been weird all afternoon too,” and it’s Tony’s turn to hiss, “Morgan!”

“I think grown-ups are just weird,” Lila says solemnly and Morgan agrees. Ah, so it’s going to be that kind of friendship, isn’t it?

“Lila, dinner?” he prompts, steering the conversation back toward what it’s supposed to be.

She thinks about it. “Cheeseburgers are fine.”

Jim decidedly does _not_ pump his fist in the air.


	21. Ironpanther; Professional Rivals AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary
> 
> This is...a mess and I apologize for that but this one just didn't want to be written

He’s still furious when he returns to his hotel room. Tony’s remarks had been out of line and deliberately designed to rile him up so he would what? Fuck him harder that night? Take it out on his ass? Well, the joke’s on Tony because if he shows up, T’Challa is just going to kick him out.

So of course, Tony is already in the room when he walks in. T’Challa glares at where he’s sitting at the table with two steaming plates in front of him. “Get out,” he snaps. The pleased smile on Tony’s face disappears.

“What?”

“You heard me, get _out_.”

“Why would…?” he trails off, an understanding light dawning in his eyes. His tone turns mocking. “Did what I say get to you, Kitty Cat? All I was doing was pointing out the flaws in your business model.”

“I could point out the flaws in your own,” he retorts.

Tony snorts. “I don’t have any.”

“Don’t sound so innocent. I _know_ you cut the price of the new phone so you could outsell ours but you know our camera _and_ our battery life are better so instead you’re just going to lose money on this ridiculous little venture of yours. Stick to energy, Stark. It’s what you’re better at.”

That annoying little smile on Tony’s face has been completely replaced with a snarl. Good; T’Challa wants him as angry as he is. “At least _I_ was kind enough to point out your flaws in private instead of humiliating your entire board in the middle of a presentation,” he continues.

He doesn’t see Tony backing down from this which is why he’s completely surprised when Tony clears his throat and says, “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I should have had better tact than to say something during the questions.” Tony’s anger has vanished, leaving behind exhaustion and deep shadows under his eyes that T’Challa has always wanted to wipe away with a good night’s sleep in his bed. “I was angry about Shuri’s last review on the new Intellicrops system and I took it out on you.”

“Last review?” He frowns, fishing out his phone. Shuri usually loves Tony’s products. It annoys him to no end, especially when she uses one of Stark Industries’ inventions instead of their own. He finds the review easily enough—it’s going viral—and his frown deepens. Shuri isn’t usually so harsh.

“Are they as bad as she says they are?” he asks.

Tony shakes his head and runs his hair through his hair. It was already artfully tousled but now it just looks messy. “Not even close. I’ve had my engineers running experiments and simulations around the clock and no one has gotten the results that she did. I can’t figure out what happened.”

T’Challa takes a closer look at the shadows under his eyes. They’re bad enough that he suspects Tony hasn’t slept more than two or three hours since the review came out.

“Tony, are you okay?” he asks hesitantly. Sometimes, Tony lashes out when he thinks his competency is being questioned and he doesn’t want to start another fight.

Tony barks out a sharp laugh. “Not even close,” he says wearily. “I need to get this solved. I’ve already got investors pulling out of the Intellicrops program because of what your sister said and I don’t. Know. What’s. Wrong. So it’s not like I can fix it and I have to because otherwise this program is going to fail and it can’t because then the board will insist I go back to what we were doing before and I can’t go back to making weapons, Kitty Cat, I can’t do it.”

Surreptitiously, T’Challa sends a text off to his sister to tell her to either start trying to figure out what happened or take down the review. It’s the least she can do after such scathing comments. He loves his sister, he really does, and he knows Tony likes her a lot but she has such a scientist’s heart: my science is better than yours and I’m going to prove it. He remembers the comment she once made about one of Panther Inc.’s top teams before she joined R&D, how she had suggested something that sounded simple but had escaped notice and when they’d told her that they hadn’t thought of it, she’d smiled and told them that she was sure they tried their best.

It wasn’t like she had been wrong but T’Challa hadn’t been surprised when his lead scientist had quit when it had been announced that Shuri was taking over R&D. Yes, he very much loves his sister but he can recognize that she can be condescending at times.

He gets a text back from her telling him that she had already started doing so the moment she posted the review and realized her hastiness. He smiles to himself; his sister may be condescending sometimes but she has a good heart and to him, that matters far more.

“Would it help if we looked into the matter with you?” he asks, sitting down across the table from Tony.

Tony frowns at him. “I don’t need your charity,” he points out.

He bites back the initial flare of anger. “It’s not charity. We hurt your reputation, I don’t see why we can’t be the ones to fix it.”

Tony peers at him for a long moment and then points at him with his fork and says, “You’ve already started working on it, haven’t you?”

Guilt as charged. He shrugs. “Shuri felt bad,” he simply says.

Tony sighs ruefully. “I’m never going to live this down if she solves it before I do.”

“Tony,” he says carefully. “It doesn’t need to be solved tonight.”

“Hmm,” Tony replies neutrally. But he doesn’t argue any further and when T’Challa pulls one of the plates toward him, Tony starts eating as well. It’s quiet for a long time before Tony eventually says, “I _am_ sorry. I shouldn’t have taken out my frustrations on you.”

“I understand,” T’Challa says simply because it’s not alright that Tony did his very best to humiliate him but he can understand why it happened. Shuri works for his company; Tony could have very easily believed that T’Challa had endorsed her statement. He’s still a little mad with him—who wouldn’t be after the vitriolic things Tony said during the questions?—but he sees where the misunderstanding between the two of them had occurred. And, frankly, if Pepper had gone after PI’s communication beads the way Shuri had gone after the Intellicrops, he probably would have done the same thing to Tony that had been done to him.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Tony insists. “I’ll retract it, do some PR work with you or something.”

“Tony,” he says quietly. “You’re right, you shouldn’t have, but I do forgive you. Or I eventually will.” He watches as Tony slumps back in his chair, relieved or tired, he isn’t certain. “Come, we’ll finish our dinner and then _you_ are going to go to bed and sleep for eight hours.”

“And where will you be?” Tony asks, attempting a leer and manage a tired smirk instead.

“On the couch. I don’t want to share a bed with you at the moment; I’m still angry with you.”

Tony nods. “Yeah, that’s fair enough.”

And if early the next morning as the sun is rising over the city, T’Challa decides that the couch is cold and uncomfortable and he crawls into the bed, well, Tony doesn’t argue then either.

“I’m still mad at you,” T’Challa whispers into the back of his neck.

Tony nods sleepily. “Okay.”


	22. Stuckony; Futuristic AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by anon

“Attention all passengers, we have a rare treat today. On the port side of the ship—that’s _left_ for all of you who are planet-locked—a pod of Andromeda whales are playing and it looks like they might have a calf with them.”

The passengers in the bar exclaim loudly and flock to the portholes to gaze out at the galaxy’s biggest draws. Bucky snorts and continues cleaning the glasses. “Ridiculous,” he mutters to Quill. “I bet some of these people are repeat passengers and they still believe it’s a ‘rare’ sight.”

Quill laughs and concentrates on a bunch of empty glasses sitting on a table across the room. One by one, they zoom to his hand and he passes them off to Bucky. Bucky eyes him enviously. Quill is part Celestial so he gets these really cool powers; _Bucky_ grew up on Hydra and lost his arm in an industrial accident. Admittedly, now he has an amazing arm made out of stardust, courtesy of Tony, but he still wants cool powers.

“I bet they go home and tell all their friends,” Quill says. “Guess what? We saw _another_ pod of whales. The captain says it’s a rare sight. I guess we’re just _lucky_. Oh you’ve never seen one? You can’t afford to go on one of Stellar’s cruises? What a _shame_.”

Bucky snorts again. “Asshole,” he says amiably, elbowing Quill’s gut. Quill oofs and doubles over.

“That’s me,” he says cheerfully. “An asshole but not, as my girlfriend says, a complete dick.”

“How is Gamora anyway?”

“Still happily chasing down bad guys in Centaurus A. How’s Tony? I haven’t seen him up here in a while. Did he finally dump your ass for Steve?”

Bucky very maturely decides not to use the laser pointer in his ring finger on him. Sure it would be funny to watch Goose come out of nowhere and attack the red dot on Quill’s chest but then he wouldn’t be able to tell him that he and Tony are doing just fine, thank you very much.

“He’s been busy,” he says. One of the passengers comes back from watching the whales and orders a Nova Fireball so he gets to work making that, making light conversation as he does. Once the passenger wanders back off, he turns back to Quill and says, “Something happened down in Engineering on the first day of this cruise and they’ve been trying to get it fixed.”

“Something critical?”

He shakes his head. “I think Tony would be more worried if it were critical.” His neural implant beeps and he grins. “Speak of a Galarian Devil—”

“—and it’ll appear,” Quill finishes. “He on his way up?”

Bucky nods, already turning from the bar to the door. Two seconds later, Tony appears, grease-streaked and sweaty but smiling. Bucky pours out a finger of whiskey, found only on Knowhere and Tony’s favorite drink, and slides it across the bar as Tony perches on one of the stools.

“Can’t stay long,” Tony says tiredly. “I desperately need a shower.”

“Hmm and you’re stinking up the bar,” Bucky agrees.

Tony bats at his arm but it’s pretty weak. “Rude. I slave all day and night to keep this bucket of bolts running and what thanks do I get for it?”

“A kiss,” Bucky tells him and leans across the bar to kiss Tony firmly on the mouth. Tony tastes a little like sugar, a common trait in Aurums, and a little like metal and Bucky wonders if he’s been licking the bulkhead again. Aurum saliva has technomancer properties but that doesn’t mean that Bucky _likes_ it when Tony licks things to fix them.

“Well now isn’t that a sight?” someone asks, strolling into the bar.

Bucky breaks apart, ignoring Tony’s indignant whine, to see Steve, grinning broadly and looking pristine in his white uniform. It’s a sight apart from Tony in a tank top covered in oil stains and a black stain behind his ear that Bucky doesn’t want to identify but he loves them both just the same. Now if only they could convince Steve of that instead of the man backing away every time he and Tony get more explicit than a kiss.

“Aren’t you supposed to be chasing after toddlers?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.

“On break,” Steve says easily. Thought I’d come down here and see my two best guys instead.”

He turns away from Tony to ask Quill for a bottle of water so he misses seeing the way Tony scowls. Bucky does though and he breathes into Tony’s ear, “Easy, stardust.”

“He keeps _saying_ things like that,” Tony protests. “And you and I both know he means them so why doesn’t he believe us when we say the same thing about him?”

“Probably cause you and I have been together since we were kids and Stevie doesn’t think there’s room for him between the two of us.”

“There’s not,” Tony grumbles petulantly. “There’s room for _me_ between the two of _you_.”

Bucky nearly doubles over laughing so hard, drawing both Steve and Quill’s attentions. “Sorry,” he wheezes. “Tony’s being bratty.”

“I am _not_.”

“You are, stardust, but that’s okay. I love you anyway,” Bucky promises, thumbing away the pout on Tony’s face. “Come on, give me a smile.”

“No,” Tony says but he’s smiling reluctantly. “Won’t.”

“Tony, you are all dimples right now,” Steve says with a laugh. “Look, I gotta get back to the kids and Tony, I think you need a shower.”

“Wow, rude,” Tony gasps.

“But true. So we’re gonna get going. Come on, Tony, I’ll walk you out.”

“Hmm kisses first,” Tony decides, leaning across the bar to give Bucky another kiss. He ignores Quill altogether and turns to Steve to brush a quick kiss across his cheek, seemingly ignoring how it completely stuns Steve.

“Bye, darlings!” Tony says cheerfully, waving as he sashays out of the bar.

Steve gives Bucky a slightly worried look but Bucky just shrugs. “What?” he asks. “Tony’s affectionate with people he likes.”

He mentally wills Steve to get it. Before he can though, Quill complains, “So does that mean Tony doesn’t like me at all?”

Distracted, Bucky snaps him with a dish towel. “Course he doesn’t. You’re an asshole, remember?”


	23. Stevetony; Arranged Marriage AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by maguna-stxrks
> 
> I can pretty much guarantee that I've mixed and matched fairy lore and that not everything is going to be accurate so take this with a grain of salt

Tony wouldn’t say he’s catatonic with fear, exactly. He’s a Stark after all and Stark men are made of iron. Not that that seems to have done him much good. If he were really made of iron, the fairies wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with him.

Anyway, he’s not catatonic with fear. He just…has a healthy level of concern. It’s perfectly normal in his situation. Expected, even! He dares anyone to not be…concerned when they find out that their father traded them to the fairy king in return for genius intellect. He gives Howard a sideways glare. Stupid Howard with his stupid arrogance and greed trading him to the stupid fairy king and then! _And then!_ He _tied him up_ and slung him over the back of a horse so he couldn’t escape!

He’s going to have bruises on his ribs from the jostling of the horse, he just knows it. He scowls again, this time to himself.

The worst part, he thinks, is that Howard doesn’t even seem to care that he’s traded away his only son. Tony can kind of understand promising your firstborn child to the fairies nineteen years ago when your wife isn’t even pregnant and you have no plans of having a child but once Tony had been born nine months later (and it _does_ make him wonder if the fairies had made sure that Howard and Maria would have a child) he would have thought that that would instill some worry in most fathers. Howard, though, Howard hadn’t even hesitated when they received the missive three days ago on Tony’s eighteenth birthday, reminding them of his bargain.

If this were a story, Howard would have done everything in his power to make sure that the fairies wouldn’t take his child. But this is real life and apparently, Howard doesn’t give a shit that he’s never going to see his son again. To be fair, under different circumstances, _Tony_ would be ecstatic never to see Howard again but he’s really not certain that being traded to the fairies is any better than where he’d been before.

They come to a stop in a clearing in the middle of the forest just outside a fairy ring and Tony shudders just looking at the small, innocuous circle of red and white mushrooms. Howard loops the horse’s reigns around a tree branch and hauls Tony down from its back like he’s nothing more than a sack of potatoes. Then he takes one deliberate step inside the fairy ring.

And they wait.

It takes an age.

It takes an instant.

Tony isn’t even entirely certain when the shift happens but between one second and the next, the light seems brighter, the colors sharper. The very air smells sweeter like Mama’s orchards in the spring. And out of a door in a tree comes a fairy.

And it _is_ a fairy. His features are just a little too…off to be human. His armor is made out of a material that Tony has never seen before—he thinks that maybe, if he weren’t so terrified, he would itch to get his hands on it. Then there are the wings: two of them, in shades of red and grey and white that Tony doesn’t think exist in his world. They look incredibly delicate but he’d be willing to bet that they’re stronger than Tony himself.

It doesn’t seem to matter to the fairy that he himself isn’t in the fairy circle and in some distant corner of Tony’s mind, he wonders if that’s because they’re already in the fairy kingdom, if by stepping into the circle, they entered another world entirely.

“Nineteen years already?” the fairy asks and his voice is a low rumble that calls to mind the shifting of rocks.

Beneath him, Tony can feel Howard tremble and he viciously thinks, _Good. Now you know how I feel_.

“He turned eighteen three days ago,” Howard says, bowing a little. It’s the first time in his life that Tony has ever heard him be quiet. Howard is bluster and anger and fighting, not this tremulous man that makes Tony wonder if he had been like that before the deal with the fairies.

“He’s tied,” the fairy observes.

“He didn’t want to come.”

The corner of the fairy’s mouth twitches. “Small wonder,” he murmurs. “Set him on his feet. Let me see what King Steven is getting.”

Steven? What a thoroughly…ordinary name for the fairy king. Tony’s actually disappointed by it. The fairy laughs out loud and Tony frowns. Is he laughing at Tony? Because of how small and scrawny he is? Is he laughing at something else entirely? What could have amused him?

“I can read minds, little human,” the fairy tells him and Tony startles, nearly toppling over as Howard lets go of him. “That’s why the king made _me_ the guardian of the entrance.”

He can read minds? The thought is intriguing enough that, despite his fear, Tony’s brain kickstarts into gear, wondering about whether the fairy can read emotions or intentions, if he can only read surface thoughts or if he can tell that Tony is terrified underneath his glassy calm. How far does his range go? Can he—

The fairy laughs again and tells him, “I’ll tell you everything once you come with me.”

Tony narrows his eyes, looking at him suspiciously. It sounds like a trap. Isn’t that what everyone always says? _Be wary of the fairies, their every word is a trick._ But he’s going with the fairy anyway and it’s not like he’ll be able to leave once he’s there. He was promised to the fairies even before his conception. There’s no changing that.

He glances back at Howard. He knows what lies behind him: a lifetime of living in Howard’s shadow, being yelled at and taunted and unloved by the person who should love him best. Ahead of him? It’s a little murkier. He knows that he’s meant for the fairy king and he knows what everyone always says about the fairies. But—but he’s been promised answers and he’s unwanted back home anyway and—

The ropes fall away from him with one glance of the fairy’s eyes.

Tony jumps again and asks, “How much can you do?”

The fairy smiles, revealing a neat row of sharp teeth. He glances at Howard, who freezes. “He won’t be able to hear us and when he wakes, he will not know how much time has passed,” the fairy says. “I will answer any questions you have before you come with me and if you don’t like them, I won’t force you to share the king’s bed.”

It’s easy to spot the trap there: this fairy might not force him but there are others who might. But even the promise itself is reassuring.

“What is he like?” Tony asks quietly.

The fairy’s eyes light up with genuine delight. “He’s an idiot,” he says fondly. “He’s awkward and brave and kind. You’ll probably wonder how he can lead an entire kingdom, how he made an entire race of backstabbers and tricksters want to change their ways and the answer is this: he inspires you to want to do better. It’s irritating, really, it is. But he inspires loyalty and trust in his followers. And he’ll absolutely _adore_ you.”

“Me?”

The fairy nods but he doesn’t elaborate. “What do you say, Howard’s child?”

Tony hesitates only a moment longer. He knows what’s behind him and what lies ahead sounds like an adventure. He steps forward, out of the ring, toward the fairy. “I say yes.”

“Perfect,” the fairy purrs. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up. You can’t meet the king smelling of horse.” As they’re walking back through the tree, the fairy casually asks, “Can I have your name?”

Tony knows this one: if he lets the fairy have his name, it’ll belong to him and not to Tony. But he has two names and one of them, he no longer answers to.

“Anthony,” he says easily and the fairy laughs.

“A name without power,” he says. “You’ll do very well with us.”

In the forest, Howard awakens alone.


	24. Winteriron; Private Detective AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by anon

Bucky actually despises taking the cheating spouse jobs. He hates that people are so desperate for proof that their spouse is cheating on them so they could get out of their prenup—because it’s _always_ someone rich enough to need a prenup—and he hates that there’s no trust in relationships anymore and he hates the way the people who ask him to do jobs like this always look down on him.

But money is money and Bucky doesn’t have a lot of it so he always takes the job because bills don’t care about your moral standards.

Doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it though.

And he’s not. He always calls Nat or Stevie during the long vigils so he can complain about these stupid jobs and how ridiculous they are and did you know that not only is Senator Johnson cheating but he’s cheating with one of the male interns working on his reelection campaign and that’s just _gross_ and a massive abuse of power. And Nat or Steve always act like they’d be patting his hand if they were there with him. Nat always reminds him that these jobs are worth it so he can take the jobs that actually mean something and Stevie always spends a few minutes ranting about the state of political corruption in this country and how it’s going to hell in a handbasket. Bucky likes those rants. They make him feel better.

Problem is, this latest cheating spouse case? He’s pretty sure it’s not a cheating spouse.

Tiberius Stone, CEO of Viastone, has been married to his spouse for the last five years and recently set his eye on a pretty young socialite who aspires to be an actress, go figure. So now, of course, he wants out of his marriage but the problem is that his spouse, one Anthony Stark, is a ruthless son of a bitch who managed to trick Stone into a prenup that’ll wipe him of all he’s worth if Stone breaks off the marriage for anything less than infidelity.

Bucky got a look at the prenup when he was doing research for this case. The thing is _vicious_ and blatant enough that when he’d read through it, he had kind of wondered if Anthony Stark—with his pretty doe eyes and wicked smile—had been sucking Stone’s cock when he got him to sign.

Fortunately for Stone, Anthony Stark has been mysteriously leaving the house late at night and early in the morning and shaking off every other tail that Stone has put on him, hence the private detective.

Bucky prides himself on being the best private detective in the entire state of New York (with the exception of Miss Jones, who somehow manages to be twice as good as him while permanently _drunk)_ so it’s easy peasy for him to stake out the mansion for a few days before he spots Stark leaving the house one early morning with an oversized suitcase and a squirrely look about him before getting in his car and backing down the driveway.

He grins to himself and settles back to wait. He doesn’t need to do what other PI’s do and follow the guy at a respectable distance because he’s got something better: a tracker, stolen from his time with the army and discretely placed on the underside of Stark’s car.

Except Stark gets halfway down the driveway and then stops, gets out of the car, kneels down, and fishes around underneath the car until he finds what looks like Bucky’s tracker. He flips it over, pulls a tiny screwdriver out of his pocket and fiddles with it for a moment before sticking it back on the car.

That’s…weird.

Bucky watches him pull out of the driveway and drive off and then checks the GPS on his phone to see where the tracker is going. And that’s when he realizes that Anthony Stark is going in the _opposite_ direction that the tracker is claiming.

“ _Fuck!_ ” he exclaims, scrambling for his car.

He’s certain that Stark must know he’s behind him if he’s beaten every other PI Stone has sent after him. But Stark doesn’t bother backtracking or trying to lose him or any of the other tricks he’s seen employed by people who think they’re following. No, he just drives right into the heart of the city and pulls up to…the VA hospital.

What?

Bucky grabs his binoculars, adjusting them just in time to see Stark stop at the front entrance and a couple nurses come out to greet him as he gets out of the car. He switches the audio part of the tracker on, wondering if Stark hadn’t managed to turn that off at least.

“—if you need help with installation,” Stark says, rounding the corner to the trunk. He pops it open and unzips the suitcase, emerging with a handful of—are those _arms?_ And what looks like a _leg_ and—

“Holy shit, you sick bastard, he’s not cheating on you at all,” Bucky mutters. And he’d be willing to bet that Stone knows it too cause this? This isn’t really the kind of thing you can hide. This is the kind of personality that seeps out in other ways no matter how much Stark might try to act like an asshole.

“I’ll be back tomorrow evening with another batch,” Stark finishes as he hands off the last of the prosthetics to the nurses.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” one of the nurses says fervently.

“Don’t mention it,” Stark says causally. “Seriously, don’t.”

He watches them go and then sets off across the parking lot—right toward Bucky’s car. Aw fuck, he _knew_ he shouldn’t have just followed him but Stark discovering his bug had really thrown him off. For a brief moment, he entertains the thought of just leaving but he’s pretty sure that would create more problems than it solves.

Stark smiles sweetly and taps on his window. Bucky rolls it down and waits for the riot act.

But when it comes, all Stark says is, “If Ty wants a divorce, he can have the balls to tell me himself.” Then he glances at Bucky’s empty left sleeve—his main souvenir from the army—and adds, “I can help with that, if you want.”

Then he walks—no, that’s a fucking _sashay_ —back to his car, gets in, and drives off.

And Bucky drags his gaze away from Stark’s ass, sinks lower in his seat, and mutters, “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”


	25. Ironhawk; Circus AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary
> 
> Does the circus work like this? Probably not. But it's creative liberty

Clint is very aware that his head can be turned by anyone pretty. He’s perfectly willing to acknowledge that it’s one of his many failings (Natasha would argue that he doesn’t have _many_ failings but she would definitely agree that his crow-like attraction to anything shiny and pretty is one of them).

So he’s not terribly surprised when he catches sight of someone _very_ pretty walking by the range just as he’s letting the arrow loose. Even before it has fully left the bow, he knows it’s going to go wide—and it does, sailing past the apple he was supposed to hit and into the bullseye of the target beyond it. Well, at least it’s still a bullseye.

“Aw arrows,” he says mournfully, watching his dreams of joining Stark’s Circus go down the drain.

The ringmaster—whose name Clint didn’t catch but looks like he should be one of the strong men instead of the ringmaster—eyes him doubtfully. “Are you sure—” he starts to say but his cut off as the pretty boy who’d distracted Clint earlier hops over the fence into the range, drawn by the commotion.

“Hey, Thor, what’s going on?” he asks.

The ringmaster’s eyes light up. “Tony!” he exclaims, turning around and catching up the boy in a back-breaking hug. Clint winces sympathetically as apparently-Tony winces. “You’re back early!”

“Yep,” Tony wheezes. “Put me down, big guy.”

“Ah, my apologies,” Thor says and puts Tony down carefully, brushing off any dust on him. “How was the semester?”

Tony jams his hands into his pants pockets and shrugs. “It was fine,” he says evasively, avoiding Thor’s eyes. “Is Dad around?”

“Your father is out scouting the Wakandans.”

“Sabotaging, more like,” Tony mutters sullenly. “Great, well…don’t tell him I’m back yet?”

Thor nods gravely. “Of course,” he agrees.

“Anyway—” Tony nods toward Clint. “What’s going on here?”

“New act.” Thor glances at the still-intact apple. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I’m a trick shot,” Clint pipes up.

It’s Tony’s turn to look at the apple and then at the arrow embedded in the target behind it. “You are?”

Wow, rude. “I was distracted,” he says defensively.

“By what?”

Never let it be said that Clint Barton is a coward! “By you.”

Maybe, if he shoots his shot and Tony shoots him down, he’ll have an excuse to gives Natasha when he tells her that they won’t be joining this circus. Maybe the Wakandans will take them in. He’s heard they love aerialists like Nat and as for him? …Maybe they’ll let him clean the trailers or something.

But Tony isn’t shooting him down. Tony is blushing? Really, he’s blushing? Holy shit, maybe this won’t go as poorly as he’d thought.

“Me?”

“My partner calls me a crow. She says I’m horribly attracted to pretty things.”

Tony’s blush deepens. “And what do you call yourself?”

“Hawkeye!” he says proudly, puffing out his chest. Then he realizes Tony might have been asking for his name. “But Clint when I’m not in the ring.”

“Clint,” Tony says, nodding thoughtfully. He turns to Thor. “What do you think? Give him a second shot?”

“Really?” Clint says excitedly before Thor can reply. “You’d do that for me?”

Tony smiles at him. “It’s a little hard to take you out to dinner if you’re not with the circus.”

Clint makes every shot Thor asks him to.

And Tony is just as pretty in the candlelight of a romantic dinner as he is in the sunlight of the open range.


	26. Stuckony; Monster Hunters AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by furthermadness
> 
> I know we're a day behind again but I was busy yesterday

Tony sings.

A lot.

Which makes sense considering both how he makes a living and the very nature of what he is. And Bucky really wouldn’t have any problems with Tony singing—he doesn’t want to make anyone deny their nature after all and sirens are born to sing. Plus, his singing can be damn useful on a hunt. No more having to look for the monsters, nah, just let Tony sing and they’ll come to him.

It’s the _rest_ of the time that Tony’s singing can get irritating. Cause if he’s not singing to lure someone in, then he’s usually humming under his breath and he always picks the most _annoying, catchy_ songs in the entire world.

He and Steve let themselves in, hang the swords up by the front door, and pause for a moment to listen to the sounds of Tony singing floating in from the kitchen. Well, at least he’s singing something from the new _Frozen_ movie. One of his sisters had voiced the mysterious voice Elsa was hearing and Tony was so proud, he’d been singing the songs ever since the film came out.

“How much you want to bet Tony burns dinner and we have to order takeout?” Steve asks, sniffing cautiously to see if it’s already burnt.

“No bet,” Bucky replies immediately. “Already got pizza on speed-dial.”

“Now that’s not very nice,” Tony sings, swanning out of the kitchen. He takes one look at Bucky and Steve, still splattered with werewolf guts, and wrinkles his nose. “You couldn’t have washed off outside?”

“Course we could have but then we’d have the neighbors asking why we come back bloody every night,” Bucky says, bending down to give Tony a kiss. They had at least taken the time to rinse off their boots so they weren’t tracking bloody footprints through the house.

Tony wrinkles his nose again. “Yuck,” he says plaintively. “You know, monster hunting is a perfectly legal job these days.”

“Still comes with a stigma,” Steve points out and ducks off toward the shower. “I call dibs!”

“Unfair!” Bucky yells after him but he doesn’t chase after him. Too much effort after the long hunt. Silently, Tony passes him a cup of coffee. “Thanks, doll.” He breathes in the aroma, letting it fill his lungs, refreshing him from the hunt.

“Successful hunt?” Tony asks as he saunters back into the kitchen. Bucky follows him, sighing when Tony starts humming _It’s a Small World._

“It was fine. Thanks for not arguing about coming with us.”

Tony sighs. Steve had put his foot down when they’d realized that the werewolf was attacking entertainers. Tony is a great help on most of their cases when he could enthrall their prey but not this one, not where he wouldn’t have been help so much as bait, and neither Steve nor Bucky were willing to risk their boyfriend’s life. They know it had frustrated him though. Tony hates letting them go out alone, even if they’re all the backup they need.

“It’s okay,” Tony says eventually. “Got a few new songs written and finished editing tomorrow’s video.”

“You’re not careful, one of these days, someone’s going to offer you a contract,” Bucky says, proud of how Tony has built up a successful Youtube career from nothing with just his music.

“Gross, _no_ ,” Tony says emphatically. “It’s bad enough that Youtube pays me. Whatever happened to the Internet of our youth?”

“Didn’t have Internet in my youth,” Bucky points out and snickers into his coffee when Tony glares at him. Bucky and Steve are some of a long line of monster hunters, blessed with long life and superhuman abilities.

“Oh, while you were out, Dum Dum called,” Tony said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Said he wanted to come over tomorrow to discuss something about a mermaid tribe causing problems off the coast of Hawaii. He thinks it’ll take more than just him. I said I’d talk it over with you two but I sent Rhodey out there anyway to scout and talk down if he needs to.”

Bucky frowns, agreeing with the assessment. Mermaids have been getting antsier in the last couple of decades, causing more and more problems and requiring more and more hunters to solve those problems to the point that their numbers are starting to dwindle. He doesn’t want to see an entire race wiped out if they could help it, especially not a sentient race like mermaids.

“Good thinking,” he says.

“That’s me, the king of good ideas,” Tony replies cheekily, grinning widely. He takes his eyes off the stove for a moment and in the next instant, the pot catches fire. “Oh _shit_.”

Bucky scrambles for the fire extinguisher as Tony tries to turn off the burner in the hopes of turning the fire down. In the ensuing mess, they both miss Steve, dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his waist, coming back into the kitchen though they definitely don’t miss him laughing at the two of them. They get the fire under control—though dinner is ruined—and Tony throws open a couple of the windows to air out the kitchen.

“So pizza?” Steve asks and winks at Bucky.

Bucky throws his phone at him and growls, “You can order the pizza. I’m getting a shower.”

As he leaves, he hears Tony start singing a song about his cooking problems to the tune of _Call Me Maybe_ , right up until he hears a muffled _mmph_ as Steve bends him over the counter and kisses him. He laughs and starts the shower. Maybe the evening isn’t completely ruined.


	27. Winteriron; Flower Shop AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by warmachinesocks
> 
> Well this took a left turn into Fantasyland

“Tony, doll, can you grab three bundles of orchids from the greenhouse?” Bucky calls.

Tony gives him a cheeky salute and disappears through the back door. He comes back a moment later with three bundles of bright purple orchids and passes them off to Bucky, who starts working on the arrangement. The order isn’t terribly complicated, which he’s grateful for—after last week’s wedding fiasco (fucking mother of the bride), he’ll be happy if he never has to see another complicated order again.

“How’s it looking back there?” he asks, pretty certain that they’re running low on some of the annuals. They’ll need to purchase new seeds soon.

Tony shrugs. “We’ll need new zinnia and petunia seeds soon,” he says, leaning up on his toes to kiss Bucky’s cheek. “But everything else is looking good.”

“What about everything downstairs? If I’m running by the nursery this afternoon, we might as well make a double trip and swing by the apothecary.”

“I’m going to need more death cap mushrooms soon but that’s a trip to the forest, not the apothecary. I think I want to start a new plot of sage though so I’d like to get some of that. Oh! And I’m running low on incubus tongue and with Valentine’s Day coming—”

“Love potions are more in-demand than ever,” Bucky finishes. He’s been dating Tony long enough to know what potions are popular at what time of year.

“Attaboy,” Tony says with a wink. “When’s the next time we’re going over to Steve’s for dinner? I’ve got a client who needs a dragon scale for a protection spell and I think he said he was shedding a few weeks ago.”

“Tomorrow. He and Sharon are—”

The bell above the door chimes and they both chorus, “Welcome to Bluebells and Belladonnas!”

Angie, the little old witch who comes in every week to pick up roses for her wife, coos at them, “You two are so _cute!_ ”

“Not as cute as you, Mrs. Martinelli,” Bucky says, laying on the old Brooklyn charm. He uses it on most customers because it makes them buy more but for Angie, it only makes her chuckle and blush. “What can we get for you today?”

“A dozen roses,” she orders like always and passes them a tube of lipstick. Tony disappears into the greenhouse behind the shop again. “Here’s the color she’s wearing today.”

He makes small talk with the old woman, chatting about her granddaughter who’s seeing Steve and speculating about when they’re finally going to announce that they’re engaged. Tony comes back out a few moments later with a collection of white roses. He swipes the lipstick over them and, before their eyes, the color spreads across the flowers until all twelve are as deep a red as the lipstick itself.

Tony passes the flowers and the lipsticks back over to Angie as Bucky rings her up. “And how will you be paying today, Mrs. Martinelli?” he asks.

“With news,” she says, lowering her voice to a hush. Bucky and Tony glance at each other. Ravenspoint is a small town; news is worth its weight in _gold_. “They contacted Peggy first, that’s how we know before everyone else.”

“Know what?” Tony asks, leaning across the counter.

“The Starks have returned to the manor.”

Bucky doesn’t think that Angie notices Tony going stiff but _he_ certainly does. Beneath the counter, he slips his hand under Tony’s shirt to rest on Tony’s hip, running his thumb back and forth soothingly.

“Rosewood’s been empty for decades,” he points out. “Since Stane’s death. Why are they back now?”

Angie shakes her head. “Maria didn’t say. But apparently, the wards wouldn’t let her and Howard back in when they tried to enter. That’s why they needed to see Peggy.”

“Peggy wouldn’t be able to lower the wards,” Tony says quietly, leaning further into Bucky’s hand.

“That’s what she told them. I guess they thought that as the head witch of the coven, she’d be able to override little Anthony’s spell.”

Tony flinches and Bucky looks down at him. Tony has never told him the full story of what happened the night Howard and Maria Stark fled Rosewood, leaving their only son and heir behind in the guardianship of the family butler but he’s heard enough pieces that he could probably guess. The storm of the century centered directly over the manor, a family friend much too interested in the immense amounts of power the young heir holds killed, and a father who couldn’t resist keeping his resentment over his child’s power to himself and a mother who never bothered to protect her son banished? Yeah, Bucky can most definitely figure it out. These days, no one knows that Tony of Bluebells and Belladonnas is Anthony Stark—besides the Jarvises, Peggy, and Bucky himself.

“Where did they go?” he asks, wondering if he needs to put up his own wards around the shop and their upstairs home tonight—or if they need to be leaving town for a few days.

“To the Jarvises,” Angie says. “Where else would they go? They’re the only ones who know where Anthony might be.”

Bucky and Tony share another look, both thinking the same thing: they need to call Edwin after Angie leaves to make sure word doesn’t get out about Tony’s whereabouts. They let Angie take her roses and leave and Tony immediately disappears into the downstairs greenhouse to call Jarvis and spend some time puttering with his potions. Bucky locks up the shop early, deciding that Tony’s distress is more important than the day’s sales. They don’t have any deliveries or orders today so he refuses to worry about any potential loss of profit. They make more than enough from both businesses anyway.

He goes back into the regular greenhouse for a few minutes to collect a small bouquet of flowers: gladioluses for strength, violets for peace, magenta zinnias for constancy and affection. Tony is working on what looks like a luck potion when he gets down there so Bucky waits until he’s done adding the crushed gardenia and has set the pot on a low simmer before he says, “What did Jarvis say?”

“To set up the wards,” Tony says. He’s not looking at him but he hasn’t sent him away either so Bucky feels confident coming up behind him to put the flowers in a vase and hug him close. He rests his chin on Tony’s shoulder.

“Anything else?”

“Maybe close the shop for a few days. I don’t want to do that though. We’ll lose out on too many customers.”

“So we’ll ask Steve and Sharon to come in.”

Tony snorts. “Over my dead body will we trust Steve with the greenhouse.”

“Sharon can handle those. Steve can handle the cash register. You know how many bouquets will sell with his ‘aw shucks’ routine?”

“…A lot,” Tony admits reluctantly.

“Exactly.” Bucky turns his head, pressing a kiss to the underside of Tony’s jaw. Tony sighs. “Come on, doll. Our friends have been saying for ages that we need a vacation so let’s take one. We’ll get away from here, wait until it all blows over and your parents leave again, and then we’ll come back.”

Tony closes his eyes, swaying a little on the spot. Bucky knows he’s been stressed lately. The store had a couple rough months earlier this year and they’re still not making as much of a profit as either of them would like. Bucky’s been stressed over it too but Tony seems to take it personally.

“Come on,” he croons, mouthing behind Tony’s ear. “We’ll go up into the mountains, rent one of those cabins with the bear rugs you read about in those romance novels you think I don’t know about.”

“Bucky!” Tony hisses.

“Whaddya say?”

“…Yeah, okay.”


	28. Stevetony; Fashion & Models AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by ad1thi
> 
> This is the long-awaited and often-requested follow up to my fic, Sense of Memory and Desire and it is pretty much porn so feel free to skip if that's not your thing

Steve has Tony pliant and knotted when he gets the email from Parker, letting him know that the proofs are done. They’re both curled up on their sides, Steve tucked up behind Tony as their bond hums contentedly between them, Tony’s heat sated for at least a little bit. It’s been two days, more intense and longer than Tony’s average heat, and he’s pretty sure they can blame the stress Tony had been under during his pre-heat, what with the photoshoot only minutes before his heat began.

“Captain Rogers,” JARVIS says quietly. “You asked to be notified when Mr. Parker sent you the prints from the photoshoot.”

“Already?” Steve asks surprised, keeping his voice as low as the AI is. He doesn’t want to wake Tony up again. His omega is already exhausted, worn out from two days of nearly nonstop fucking. This is the first time he’s slept more than thirty minutes at a time and Steve would like to keep it that way.

“Yes, sir.”

Huh. Parker must have really been working around the clock to get the prints already sent out. That or Gucci must have him on a tight deadline. With American capitalism the way it is, he’d be willing to bet it’s the latter.

He leans over Tony’s shoulder, grabbing a tablet from the bedside table and pulling up the email JARVIS had been referring to. It takes a minute to load and he waits impatiently, wanting to see how much of Tony’s essence Parker had captured—how much the entire world would be able to see of Tony’s desperation in heat. He remembers how Tony had acted that day, wanton and needy and all _Steve’s_. He hadn’t wanted to share that with _anyone_ , let alone random people on the street who could look up and see Steve’s heat-desperate omega.

But Tony had been the one to accept the offer and Tony had insisted on Steve being his partner for the shoot and Steve thought that the least he could do was curb his possessiveness. More than anything, he doesn’t want to drive Tony away just because his insecurities make him jealous before the omega’s heat. It isn’t Tony’s fault that Rachel left him during her pre-heat because she wanted a “real alpha” and not a sickly mess or that Archie got up in the damn middle of his heat because Steve’s health didn’t let him keep up with his demands. Steve’s different now, _better_. He can keep up with Tony, even during a bad heat like this one, and even if he couldn’t, Tony has told him over and over again that he’s perfectly capable of handling a heat with toys, all omegas are, and Archie was just a shitty omega if he left because he didn’t want to use a dildo.

Even so, Steve can’t always hide that little insecure voice in the back of his mind that tells him that he’s not enough for an incredible omega like Tony—and he just knows that this ad is going to break all the alphas out and sniffing around. Tony will have his pick of the alphas and what if he doesn’t want Steve anymore? What if Steve’s finally been too much and—

“Smelling real sour there, hon,” Tony murmurs sleepily.

Steve bends down and kisses the curve of his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologizes.

“It’s fine. Heat’s starting to build again anyway.”

He tests his knot, feeling it give just a little. Yeah, no wonder Tony’s heat is starting to get worse again. Knotting is the only way to keep it sated. At least they’re going longer between rounds now.

“What’s got you worried?” Tony asks, stroking Steve’s arm where it’s draped over his stomach.

“Nothing,” Steve denies. Tony hums like he knows that Steve is lying but he doesn’t push the issue. “Parker sent the prints over. Wants our approval before he sends them off.”

“Oh yeah? J, throw them up on the window for me?”

The window showing them the New York skyline goes black as Jarvis puts the first picture up. It’s the one where Tony had been curled into Steve’s chest, the alpha looking at the camera. Parker must have manipulated the lighting because the picture is a lot darker than Steve remembers the set being, the only light coming from the arc reactor in Tony’s chest. He moves his fingers up Tony’s stomach, tracing the scars around the reactor. He knows how Tony got the reactor—he’d actually been part of the team who had rescued Tony from the caves though he doesn’t think the omega remembers that—but it always awes him that Tony had survived such an intrusive procedure.

“Fuck babe, Gucci is gonna sell _so much_ perfume,” Tony breathes, awed.

Steve looks again at the picture, wrinkling his nose. Tony looks desperate alright, desperate and turned on and fucking gorgeous. Steve can’t resist rolling his hips into Tony, his cock stiffening at the sight of his omega looking like _that_.

“Look at you,” Tony continues, breath coming out in little hitches as Steve fucks him. “Every omega in the world is gonna want an alpha who looks like that.”

Reluctantly, Steve drags his gaze from Tony to himself—and he gets it. Because yeah, Tony looks amazing and there’s going to be a whole lot of alphas who are going to want to claim him for himself but the look on Steve’s face is smug and confident and very much dares anyone to even _try_ to take his omega from him—he’ll put anyone who tries in the fucking _ground_.

He licks over Tony’s bonding gland as the omega whines and mutters, “JARVIS, can you show us the other picture?”

The picture changes and now it’s Tony clutching Steve’s mouth to his throat and looking at the camera with that cocky tilt of his eyebrow, telling everyone who sees them that Steve is his as much as he is Steve’s. For the first time, Steve completely understands what Parker wants to accomplish with these pictures. The point isn’t to make everyone want Steve and Tony—the point is to make everyone think that this is something they can have with their _own_ partner and _fuck_ did he succeed.

Steve pinches Tony’s nipple between his fingers, grinning as the omega cries out for him. His knot has fully gone down, Tony’s heat scent spiking again, and Steve can drive into him now, can slide his hand down Tony’s chest, down the mess he’s made on his stomach, to fondle his hardening cock. He rolls Tony onto his front, fucking him hard now, gripping Tony’s hair to turn his face to look at the two of them posted on the wall. He wants Tony to look like that all the time, wants the whole world to know that Tony in heat is absolutely gorgeous—and completely unavailable.

“Sir, Mr. Parker sent a second email,” JARVIS interrupts and Steve slows his hips to a steady roll. Tony whimpers beneath him. “He wants to know if you will model for him again.”

“Whaddya say, sweetheart?” Steve asks, bending down and whispering the word into Tony’s ear. Tony takes one look at their picture and nods quickly. Steve sits back up and rewards him with a hard, _deep_ thrust. “ _Fuck_ , Tony. Feel so good around me. JARVIS, tell him yes.”

He doesn’t know if JARVIS says anything else, too focused as he is on making Tony scream.


	29. Winteriron; Tattoo Parlor AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by justsomeoneunordinary
> 
> I don't explicitly say it but I imagine Bucky's age to be around 25 or so in this AU

Bucky is pretty sure that the kid standing across the counter from him is too young to even be getting a tattoo, let alone have one that he wants to cover up. But the kid is practically in tears and Bucky’s been accused many, many times of having a mushy heart beneath the tough guy exterior so he says, “What are you looking to get done?”

The kid lifts the hem of his shirt and shows Bucky a small heart on his hip with the words _S.B. + T.S._

Oh, so it’s one of _those_ tattoos.

“Girlfriend break up with you?” he asks sympathetically.

To his horror, the kid’s eyes start to well with tears. _Shit_. “Fuck, kid, I didn’t mean to—kid—”

“Tony,” the kid sniffles. “And I thought she liked me. She _said_ she liked me but she just wanted Howard’s prototype and Howard said he’s disappointed in me and he’s sending me away and—and—” He starts crying again and Bucky puts the pieces together: Tony—Howard—the new computer that Baintronics released yesterday that Stark Industries is suing over. Shit, this kid, this poor kid—no, that’s not right, he remembers reading that Tony Stark is 20—but still, this poor kid was used by his girlfriend to steal what was probably a very costly invention.

“That’s rough,” he says. “’m sorry that happened to you.”

Tony peers suspiciously at him through his fingers. “What do you want?” he asks.

Right, Tony’s girlfriend just used him and he calls his dad by his first name. If that doesn’t spell trust issues right there, Bucky doesn’t know what does. Tony probably thinks Bucky is just trying to get a more expensive tattoo out of him. That’s what Bucky would think if he were in his place.

“Well, lucky for you,” he says, forcing cheerfulness into his tone, “you picked the one parlor in the city that does cover up tattoos for free.”

Slowly, Tony lowers his hands from his face. “You do?” he asks warily.

Nope. “Yep!”

“That can’t possibly be a good business model.”

It’s not. That’s why Bucky doesn’t do it. “I don’t really advertise it,” he says. Fuck, Steve’s going to clobber him when he gets home tonight. They’re barely breaking even as is. But Tony’s tears are starting to dry and when he smiles, it about lays Bucky out on the floor and he can’t bring himself to feel too bad about the decision if it makes Tony look like this.

“Thank you,” Tony says quietly. “I really appreciate it.”

“Sure thing, doll.” He doesn’t miss Tony blushing but he ignores it to give the kid some privacy. “Let’s talk about what you want to get.”

“I don’t have a sketch but I do have a picture.” He pulls a small picture out of his wallet—the kind of picture you’d expect to see of someone’s children—and passes it over to Bucky.

It’s a robot though like no robot Bucky has ever seen. It looks kind of like a long metal arm with a claw at the end and most intriguingly, it’s wearing a dunce cap.

“He was being a dummy,” Tony offers but he sounds fond beneath the word and Bucky grins.

“Did you make this?”

“Rhodey helped,” Tony says modestly. “But yeah, he’s mostly mine.”

“This is—Tony, this is _incredible_.”

Tony blushes and shyly asks, “You really think so?”

It’s the sort of question that makes Bucky think that someone has told Tony it’s not very good. He wants to hunt them down and make them regret telling Tony it wasn’t. “Seriously, this is amazing. You want to get him done over the heart?”

“Can you?” Tony asks eagerly.

Bucky studies the picture. If he works the curve of the S into the arm and the heart itself into the claw… “Yeah, I can do this. Won’t even be too hard. You mind if I take this with me? I’ll need a couple days to do a mockup for you.”

Tony nods. “That’s fine.”

“Great.” He flashes a grin at Tony and grins even bigger when it makes Tony’s breath hitch. “So I’ll work on this—do you want it without the dunce cap or with?”

“Without,” Tony says firmly. “I figured I’ll make it a 2-in-1 and let DUM-E see it for his birthday.”

Aw shit this kid just keeps getting cuter and cuter. “Can do, doll. Gimme your phone number and we’ll be all set.”

“Why do you need my phone number?”

He kind of wants to smooth out the furrow in Tony’s brow. “So I can text you when I’ve got the sketch done.”

“Oh! That makes sense.” Tony scribbles his phone number down on a piece of paper and passes it to Bucky. He bites his lip and looks down at his shoe before peering back up at Bucky through his lashes. Shit, Bucky’s in trouble, isn’t he? “And, um, if you wanted to use it for anything else, that’s cool too.”

Oh yeah, this kid spells trouble with a capital T.


	30. Thunderiron; Magic AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by ad1thi

There’s a black cat sprawled across the windowsill, tail idly twitching as brown eyes lazily track a bumblebee buzzing around the flowers. Inside the cottage, a giant of a witch is brewing a potion of liquid luck, keeping a close eye on the fire as the potion in the cauldron slowly turns from pale silver to a warm gold.

A man, recently come of age, traipses up the lane, pausing the give the cat a scratch behind its ears. “Hiya, Tony,” he says. Tony purrs and rolls over to show his belly. The man pauses, almost reaches out, and then shakes his head. He knows what that mischievous look in the cat’s eyes mean: trouble and probably a couple bleeding scratches for daring to scratch the forbidden tummy. “Do you know what Mr. Thor has me making today?”

The cat doesn’t respond but the door swings open and the giant witch laughs. “If you come inside, you can ask me yourself, Mr. Keener.”

“But it’s more fun to ask Tony,” Harley says, grinning up at his teacher.

Tony rolls back onto his side, this time facing teacher and apprentice as they go inside. His tail lashes interestedly, ears perking up, as Thor says, “Today, I have you preparing ingredients for a liquid luck potion. This is a tricky potion, one that very few witches can manage and one that can go badly wrong if brewed incorrectly so you’ll need to be mindful of your exactness.”

He passes a silver knife to Harley and continues, “You’ll need to collect three hairs from Tony so off you go.”

Cat and man give each other a baleful look and before Harley can take more than a couple steps in Tony’s direction, the cat has darted off into the garden, daring him to catch him. Harley mutters a curse that his mother certainly wouldn’t approve of under his breath and goes chasing after him. Thor just sits there and laughs. Tony is the most vain familiar he’s ever met, with the exception of perhaps Loki but Loki is more of a shapeshifter than a familiar. Tony has no excuse and considering that he sheds over everything, he should have no problem giving up some of his fur but he apparently does.

Tony leads Harley on a merry chase around the garden and finally gets him caught in prickleberry bush. He trots back to Thor, tail held high, thoroughly exuding smugness. Thor watches him come and props his hands up on his hips. It wouldn’t do to have Tony thinking he’s only ever amused at his antics, even though he is. It’s not good for the cat’s ego for one thing and for another, he’s probably supposed to be on his apprentice’s side more often than he is his familiar’s.

But Tony isn’t just his familiar and as Tony nears the door, Thor quietly says, “Beloved.”

Between one step and the next, Tony shifts from fluffy black cat to completely naked human. Thor catches him around the waist and tugs him in for a kiss, lingering over the sugar he can taste on Tony’s lips.

“Did you get into the sugar orchids this morning?” he murmurs.

“Yes,” Tony says, as unrepentant as only a cat can be.

“Mmm you taste good.”

“Of course I do.”

“But you forgot clothes.”

“I—” Tony stops and looks down at himself. “Ah.” They both turn and look at Harley, who’s ceased his struggles in the prickleberry bush to gape open-mouthed at Tony, having never seen Tony in his human form. “Well that’s unfortunate.”

Thor, who is more than familiar with the ways of his familiar, more than familiar with the lack of shame that cats had, says, “You’re not in the least bit sorry, are you?”

“No I’m not.”

“Go get dressed,” he says gently, giving a light swat to Tony’s backside.

Tony smirks at him, winks, and says, “No, I don’t think I will. I think I’ll go wait for you in our bedroom for you to finish and come back to me. Good luck on your potion today. Remember, it requires complete focus.”

He drops three black hairs into Thor’s hand and saunters into the cottage, disappearing down the hallway that leads into their bedroom and leaving Thor dumbfounded.

“That little minx!” he whispers, awed by his lover’s audacity. He shakes his head and goes to help Harley out of the prickleberry bush, telling the young man, “One day, you need to learn to control that impetuousness.”


	31. Stevetony; College/Fashion Designer AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by livingtheobsessedlife

“Okay but Steve, I really just need you to try this shirt on, it’ll take two seconds, I _swear_ —”

“Last time you said that, it took half an hour,” Steve points out but he still takes the shirt that Tony is holding out to him. It’s something soft, a little slippery, but he likes the blue color and he knows it’ll look great on Tony’s Instagram, probably bring in even more business so that they can miss more dates and—

He sighs as he slips the shirt on over his head.

“Hey, none of that,” Tony says, coming over. He smooths the shirt down over Steve’s chest and Steve has to suppress a shiver. “What’s that sigh for? Why are you sad? Who do I have to kill?”

“No one, Tony. It’s not something you can fix,” he says, smiling fondly at him.

The problem is this isn’t the first date they’ve had to cancel for Tony’s business. It isn’t even one of the first five. They’ve been dating for only a month and Tony has had to cancel or postpone six out of their eight dates. Don’t get him wrong! He’s so _proud_ of Tony for starting up his own line of clothes while he’s still in college and even prouder that he’s designing the clothes himself. When Tom Ford had come to him asking that he design a line, Tony had insisted on doing it himself and then told Steve privately later that a lot of celebrities with their own lines didn’t do the designing, they just took the credit. So the fact that on top of his engineering design, Tony is working on this has Steve just so proud of him.

He just wishes that their relationship wasn’t the thing that Tony had to sacrifice.

“Steve, seriously, what’s going on?” Tony asks and now he looks worried.

“Really, Tony, it’s nothing,” he tries to say but Tony has that stubborn set to his jaw now, the one that means he’s not going to let this go and since Tony Stark is probably the only person on the planet who could out-stubborn him, it looks like this is going to be a thing.

“Fine,” he says. “Tony, we have reservations in twenty minutes and we’re not going to make them. Again. I’m starting to wonder if you even care.”

Tony blinks at him. Once, twice, then, “Take the shirt off.”

“What?”

“Take it _off!”_ Tony demands.

“Seriously, you’re being huffy about this?”

“If you want to make the reservations, then you need to get the shirt off. Come on, chop chop, time’s a-wasting!”

There’s something jerky about the way Tony is moving and Steve freezes, looking at him. “I don’t—” he starts to say and then tries again. “Tony, it’s not just tonight. It’s all the other times too. This keeps happening over and over again and it makes me think that—”

He stops before he can finish the sentence because Tony—Tony is _crying_. _That’s_ what he’s trying hide as he moves around the room, grabbing up a watch, slipping his feet into his shoes.

“Tony, honey—”

“Can we just go?” Tony asks desperately. “We can go to your dinner and you can break up with me _there_ —”

“Whoa!” Steve exclaims, holding up his hands. “Who said anything about _breaking up_?”

“You did! Don’t even lie!”

“I didn’t—”

“You said you were wondering if I care, don’t act like that’s anything other than a prelude to breaking up. Come on, Steve, don’t you think I’ve been broken up with enough times to know that?”

And all of a sudden, Steve thinks about Pepper, lovely, wonderful Pepper who hadn’t been able to handle Tony working all the time. “Oh,” he says softly, starting to get it.

“Tony,” he murmurs, moving forward. He grabs Tony’s shoulders. “Tony, stop!”

Tony goes as still as he can, which isn’t very. Steve can feel him practically vibrating with the need to keep moving like he thinks if he stops, he’ll drown. He runs his hands soothingly down Tony’s arms, down to his hands, which he grips loosely in his own. Tony closes his eyes, a distressed furrow between his brows that Steve wants to kiss away so he does. His boyfriend inhales shakily but relaxes a little further under his lips.

“I’m not breaking up with you,” he says quietly. “We’ve only been going out a couple weeks; of course there are some kinks to work out.”

Tony snorts and he smiles.

“Yeah, I know, I said kinks.” His smile fades and he leans forward, tipping his forehead against Tony’s. “I was just frustrated that it feels like your clothing is more important than me.”

“You never tell me no,” Tony replies. “So I think it’s okay when you think it’s not and when we miss our reservation, we just end up getting pizza and watching a movie so I thought that was just what we did. I didn’t think we were cancelling our dates, just amending them a little.”

Oh. “Oh,” he says aloud. “Tony, I’m sorry. I got so caught up in taking you out to nice places that I didn’t realize you might think something different.”

“I don’t need nice places.”

“No but you deserve them.”

Tony’s mouth twitches reluctantly. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve known you wouldn’t tell me no about the clothes.”

“They _are_ nice,” Steve agrees.

“I’m just designing what I want you to wear.”

“I’d wear anything you put me in.”

“Even a paper sack.”

“…Maybe not a paper sack.”

Tony laughs; Steve thinks maybe they’re going to be okay. They can work through this, be better, _do_ better. But for now, they have a reservation to ignore—though he knows Tony will make it up to him by taking him out later this week—and pizza to order. He nudges Tony’s nose with his and softly kisses him.

“Do you want pepperoni this week or veggie?”

Tony wrinkles his nose and they both say together, “Pepperoni, Steve, do you even know me?”

Tony beams up at him, smile as bright as the sun. “But we can get half-veggie for you,” he suggests.

Steve kisses him again.


End file.
